On the afternoon of Saturday 2nd November, 2002 the Sheffield Branch held their annual training session at the attractive church of St Peter and St Paul's, Eckington, where there are some excellent facilities for teaching bellringing.

It was decided the theme of the session should be to show some ways computers can be used in bellringing, combining with some practical ringing to compliment some of the work done on the computers.

The programme included ringing at the nearby St Mary's church, Beighton as well as computer and simulator demonstrations at Eckington.

The computer software demonstrated was Abel for Windows, a bellringing simulation program allowing you to practise ringing in various modes on a PC, Tower Base, holding comprehensive details of all the bell towers where ringing is possible in the world and MethodMaster a program for printing out blue lines of methods amongst other things. Various bellringing books were also available for purchase.

Abel for windows was also the software used for a 'silent practice', making the sound of the remaining bells while a single bell was rung manually, using sensors to generate its ringing. This was popular but proved quite difficult as the sound of the bells was the only guide to correct striking.

Tower Base was also very popular. There were many requests from people for details of towers at churches that have been instrumental in their lives and it would be an invaluable aid in planning a ringing trip.

The afternoon concluded with ringing at Eckington.

Thanks go to all those involved in the organisation of the afternoon. I think it is an event that could be repeated sometime. The manufacturers of the software may even sponsor us as they got one or two sales out of it!