NAGCR AGM weekend report (my experience only)

[Laura Dickerson <lauradi rcn com>]

     A recurring theme of this report will be things we didn't do.
    We didn't get there until Friday evening, so we missed anything 
that happened before that, including ringing with a simulator. I am 
prejudiced against them, so I didn't feel left out.  A quarter of 
Yorkshire S Major happened during the early part of the Friday evening 
reception, but those ringers turned up eventually, to consume things and 
chat. I met some new (to me) people and greeted those I already knew. I 
was pleased to see Aaron Hilton, the dancer who spent part of the summer 
studying at Boston Ballet.  He learned in DC, but lives most of the year 
in New York, and rings there.
    On Saturday, the ringing was open.  We missed the PB doubles and 
minor session because I was jogging and then we went to the farmers' 
market. There were quite a few Toronto ringers in attendance.  Not 
Michael Hinton, but he was represented by his mini-ring, which was set 
up in one of the chapels.  My mini-ring handling technique leaves a lot 
to be desired, but I made it through a hunt on eight and decided to quit 
while I was ahead.  Following that, we attended the Cambridge and London 
minor session.  We skipped the carillon demonstration in order to do 
touristy things, but our trip to the area near the Zoo, trying to track 
down some vegetarian pastries from a place that was there twenty years 
ago (long gone), meant that we were too late getting back for the 
Stedman and Grandsire sessions.  We got to ring on the ten during the 
general session, including call changes (called down) and some Little 
Bob Royal. We skipped the beginning part of the business meeting in 
order to see an art exhibit in the cathedral and ended up watching a 
wedding and then having elevator trouble, so we only were there for the 
last few minutes of the meeting, at which time Elisabeth Trumpler was 
reminding people that the guild archivist needs both artifacts and 
storage space to keep them.  After the meeting, a quarter of Grandsire 
Triples was scheduled, with me on the 5th.   There were 54 minutes of 
nice ringing on the back eight, but we think we might end up calling it 
a miscellaneous performance, because there were 24 repeated changes and 
some of us in the band don't subscribe to the "anything goes in a 
quarter" theory.  Kathryn Tucker was in the thoughts of the band.    I 
presume she'll be in a number of footnotes.  We didn't go to the 
official dinner, but we recommend the Dukem restaurant.  We don't 
necessarily recommend the #96 bus.
    Sunday morning we drove to Frederick, MD.  Calvary Methodist Church 
has a ten year old ring of eight bells (9cwt).  The church buildings are 
spacious and air conditioned, but the little ringing room was fairly 
stuffy. It is just off a nice room that is used for the handbell choir, 
though, and Carolyn Ormes provided snacks (including fabulous homemade 
hummus and lemonade) for the people who were sitting in the handbell 
room between touches.    The bells feel heavier than they are, but on 
the other hand, people felt that they needed to be rung quite fast, for 
the most part.  The weekend's other teenager (besides Aaron), Abby 
Timmel, was thrown into the deep end to an extent.  Before the weekend, 
she had never rung Cambridge Major or spliced any methods at all.  On 
Sunday, she (and the rest of the surprise ringers), worked for a while 
on a touch of Cambridge, PB Major, C, C, (four leads total, bringing us 
back to rounds) that seemed confusing at first but after we'd tried it a 
couple of times, felt natural and fun.  Call changes there were called 
down, too.  We didn't go out to eat with the other ringers, but visited 
the National Museum of Civil War Medicine between ringing sessions.  
Frederick is a pleasant place to walk around in general.
    I don't know what happened in Washington on Sunday or today, 
because we visited a friend in Maryland and then came home last night.

Laura Dickerson