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choco_frosh) wrote2019-08-25 08:27 pm
choco_frosh) wrote2019-08-25 08:27 pm
Entry tags:
Realm: Con - Subrealm: BellsCon'19: The Weekend
OK! A few people are sticking around through tomorrow night* so they can go to handbell practice, but mostly everyone's gone home and the bells were rung down at 5, so I am declaring BellsCon to be over!
(And nothing broke!)
Friday I got up and did some work BEFORE D.W> was ready to get out the door, then hauled my butt to the office to put in some actual paid hours before I skived off to go ring bells. Well, ring bells, hand out t-shirts, man doors, move barbecue grills, shuck corn, run errands, act as unofficial church liaison, and all the other random low-level tasks that I tend to just find myself helping with.
A lot of this stuff on Friday had to do with the barbecue that we were throwing for everybody that night. This was lots of fun: I got to meet a lot of people, and buttonhole the President of the NAG about one or two things; and a more than adequate number of people got beer.
Also more than adequate: the food supply. We were giving out corn like zucchini from an over-productive garden by the end, an enormous quantity of salad ended up being shoved in the fridge in the hope tat somebody will eat it at SOME point, and quite a lot of us had leftover hamburgers for lunch the next day.
Saturday featured a successful quarter on the miniring, a thing that (a) I'd forgotten I'd even signed up for, (b) was accomplished no thanks to me (I screwed up a LOT, even apart from the four times I dropped the sally), (c) I am actually rather proud of (I'd never seen a miniring before Wednesday, and it was my first quarter of Grandsire, but (d) was not nearly as much fun as ringing in tower.
In addition, made coffee, helped ring bells up, failed to find a beginners' handbell room, and walked people over to Old North, simply because it was a gorgeous day. And hung out with people. And probably some other schtuff.
< More later, insert falling on my face gif >
ETA, as promised: I walked down to Battery Street to look at the Sea for a bit after I'd help lead the little group of handbell ringers to Old North, then went up to the tower and wound up helping ring down. Then walkedhome back to the Church of the Advent and then... I dunno. Was Helpful, I guess.
The actual Annual General Meeting part of the AGM was held at 4:30. It was mostly...not terribly exciting.** Highlights, such as they were, included
1. somebody proposing the former Dean of National Cathedral for posthumous inclusion on the NAG Roll of Honor, on the grounds that he'd been the one who pushed the Chapter and raised the funds to put in the bells that taught the new ringers and inspired the existing ringers who provided the impetus to start the organization that became the NAGCR in the house that Jack built, and
2. me breaking my promise to avoid annoying everyone by asking about the state of the tower at Brewster. (One or two people at the time were egging me on, so I don't feel TOO bad about that.)***
Then we hastily put away chairs so that the hall would be usable for other things, and I went up the tower (grumpily, because I'd *just* changed into my good trousers) to open the trapdoors in the sound-control floor, which I'd closed on Wednesday so that a day and a half of non-stop ringing wouldn't annoy the neighbors TOO much.
* This somewhat unfortunately includes MY houseguest, D.W., as my roommates were expecting to have the living room back by the point, because I hadn't read his email carefully enough. In retrospect, I guess I should have allocated him to some of his fellow handbell ringers.
** I guess we also had official nominations for the NAG's various officers? This process was higlyy unmemorable, and caused me to realize that several of said officers are such not because everybody else thinks they're doing a fantastic job, but because it's a thankless position that nobody else wants.
*** We'd heard rumors that (a) the building had deteriorated so much that the bells were in danger of falling out of the tower, and (b) that the nuns who own them had contemplated selling them for scrap metal. Somebody local buttonholed me while I was headed for the belfry, and was able to assure me that neither rumor was true.
So, OK, I understand that the NAGCR's officers had nothing new to report, and that they might not have even HEARD wild rumors; but they could at least have SAID: "Regarding the tower at Brewster, we have nothing new to report..."
(And nothing broke!)
Friday I got up and did some work BEFORE D.W> was ready to get out the door, then hauled my butt to the office to put in some actual paid hours before I skived off to go ring bells. Well, ring bells, hand out t-shirts, man doors, move barbecue grills, shuck corn, run errands, act as unofficial church liaison, and all the other random low-level tasks that I tend to just find myself helping with.
A lot of this stuff on Friday had to do with the barbecue that we were throwing for everybody that night. This was lots of fun: I got to meet a lot of people, and buttonhole the President of the NAG about one or two things; and a more than adequate number of people got beer.
Also more than adequate: the food supply. We were giving out corn like zucchini from an over-productive garden by the end, an enormous quantity of salad ended up being shoved in the fridge in the hope tat somebody will eat it at SOME point, and quite a lot of us had leftover hamburgers for lunch the next day.
Saturday featured a successful quarter on the miniring, a thing that (a) I'd forgotten I'd even signed up for, (b) was accomplished no thanks to me (I screwed up a LOT, even apart from the four times I dropped the sally), (c) I am actually rather proud of (I'd never seen a miniring before Wednesday, and it was my first quarter of Grandsire, but (d) was not nearly as much fun as ringing in tower.
In addition, made coffee, helped ring bells up, failed to find a beginners' handbell room, and walked people over to Old North, simply because it was a gorgeous day. And hung out with people. And probably some other schtuff.
< More later, insert falling on my face gif >
ETA, as promised: I walked down to Battery Street to look at the Sea for a bit after I'd help lead the little group of handbell ringers to Old North, then went up to the tower and wound up helping ring down. Then walked
The actual Annual General Meeting part of the AGM was held at 4:30. It was mostly...not terribly exciting.** Highlights, such as they were, included
1. somebody proposing the former Dean of National Cathedral for posthumous inclusion on the NAG Roll of Honor, on the grounds that he'd been the one who pushed the Chapter and raised the funds to put in the bells that taught the new ringers and inspired the existing ringers who provided the impetus to start the organization that became the NAGCR in the house that Jack built, and
2. me breaking my promise to avoid annoying everyone by asking about the state of the tower at Brewster. (One or two people at the time were egging me on, so I don't feel TOO bad about that.)***
Then we hastily put away chairs so that the hall would be usable for other things, and I went up the tower (grumpily, because I'd *just* changed into my good trousers) to open the trapdoors in the sound-control floor, which I'd closed on Wednesday so that a day and a half of non-stop ringing wouldn't annoy the neighbors TOO much.
* This somewhat unfortunately includes MY houseguest, D.W., as my roommates were expecting to have the living room back by the point, because I hadn't read his email carefully enough. In retrospect, I guess I should have allocated him to some of his fellow handbell ringers.
** I guess we also had official nominations for the NAG's various officers? This process was higlyy unmemorable, and caused me to realize that several of said officers are such not because everybody else thinks they're doing a fantastic job, but because it's a thankless position that nobody else wants.
*** We'd heard rumors that (a) the building had deteriorated so much that the bells were in danger of falling out of the tower, and (b) that the nuns who own them had contemplated selling them for scrap metal. Somebody local buttonholed me while I was headed for the belfry, and was able to assure me that neither rumor was true.
So, OK, I understand that the NAGCR's officers had nothing new to report, and that they might not have even HEARD wild rumors; but they could at least have SAID: "Regarding the tower at Brewster, we have nothing new to report..."