St Peter's Bell ringers competed in the STRIKING CONTEST of the Bedford District, held at ODELL on Saturday 6th. June 2009.

The object of this annual competition is to ring (non stop) for 5 minutes, with perfect rhythm and NO mistakes! There are neutral Judges or a single Judge who do not know which team is ringing, and marks the number of mistakes, as well as making useful and helpful comments. This year the Judge was Steven Stanford, a well-known Bedfordshire ringer.

Teams can enter either the ROUNDS (the simpler version of ringing), or the METHOD contest. We entered a Methods Team and our Ringers were:- 1/ Barbara Woplin, 2/ Jo Webb, 3/ Kath Stenton, 4/ Helen Horne, 51 Pat Albon, 6/ Tom Anderson.

The RESULTS were:

1st St Paul's Bedford (93%) Good start, good Tenor, not hurried, nice ringing.

2nd Kempston (89%) `Professional' ringing, good piece of ringing all through.

3rd SHARNBROOK (78%) Good effort, sometimes erratic but faults were evenly spread.

4th. Goldington (70%) Too brisk to begin with, struggled for a fair way. 5th St Peter's Bedford (66%) Faults random, Tenor a little slow.

5th. St. Peter's Bedford (66%) Faults random, tenor a little slow.

6th.  Bromham (55%) Ponderous, recovered from faults.

Rounds St Andrew's Bedford (84%) Struggled for a fair way - too brisk to begin.

Congratulations to the top two Teams (St Paul's and Kempston) who now represent us in the County Final later in the year.