July Country Meeting 2005

Hexham, Northumberland

Notes from the Hexham Country Meeting

From a couple of Northern Sausages

This year’s July country meeting was based around the beautiful and expansive building and grounds of Ridley Hall near Hexham. Alongside the traditional peals and Saturday tour, Clive Moon and his set of SRCY stewards had arranged, amongst other things, a coach trip to a pub, various garden games, a miniring installed in the garden, a giant barbecue and a fiercely competitive, if rather variable, Treasure Hunt – winning team 1 hour to victory, some teams still going after midnight ……

After finding their way round Ridley Hall and locating the allocated rooms on Friday night, most people reappeared later looking rather puzzled (having discovered one of the several other existing staircases in the Hall!) to await the arrival of the coach to the evening social event at the elegantly named Cart’s Bog Inn a few miles from the Hall. Food, good company and good beer made for a very convivial evening catching up with old friends and meeting a few new ones. The bus back to the Hall and Hexham meant that no-one had to drive if they didn’t want to. Wine and beer continued to flow back at the Hall, and the mini-ring was put to such good use that Julia felt the need to join in - in her jimjams!

Saturday brought to us a good breakfast, peals and ringing tour followed by tea and the eating of many many cakes before the meeting in the Methodist Hall. With the swiftly dealt business at the meeting, it was soon back to Ridley Hall for lawn games and predinner bar-b-que drinking after locating the bar (cunningly hidden in a cupboard!). Once open, the bar queue managed to postpone the start of Clive’s very cleverly devised Treasure Hunt by 30 minutes, as Page 18 obviously beer is necessary for all brain work. Teams of eager Treasure seekers hunted at variable speeds using many Surprising and Delightful methods, forming Alliances as they went. It was noted that the team doing “in, out, make” through the wrong set of bushes did not win! The team who did win and found the stairs that descend beneath the library got champagne all round. The other teams who finished and completed Duncan’s fiendish tie-break conundrums also got bubbly prizes.

Special thanks must go to Kris King for arranging the loan of the mini-ring from Duncan Davis at Capheaton, including transporting it to and from the Hall, and for organising the Saturday tour towers. Thanks also to Christine Richardson for ensuring that there were enough peal towers available for the many requests received, several at less than 2 weeks notice – not an easy job when you look at the number of towers available locally.

The culmination of the weekend was the high-note news that the SRCY Girls had scored their peal of Chandler’s 23-spliced at Huntingdon. Well done to all the band.

Karen Dickenson and Rachael Dyson

View photos from this event in our gallery.

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No peals have been rung for the Society July Country Meeting.