The Australian and New Zealand Association of Bellringers, known as ANZAB, is the organisation responsible for the promotion of English-style "

full circle ringing Full circle ringing is a technique of ringing a tower bell such that it swings in a complete circle from mouth upwards to mouth upwards and then back again repetitively. Technique Full-circle tower bell ringing in England developed in the ea ...

" – namely

change ringing Change ringing is the art of ringing a set of tuned bells in a tightly controlled manner to produce precise variations in their successive striking sequences, known as "changes". This can be by method ringing in which the ringers commit to memor ...

and

method ringing Method ringing (also known as scientific ringing) is a form of change ringing in which the ringers commit to memory the rules for generating each change of sequence, and pairs of bells are affected. This creates a form of bell music which is cont ...

bell tower A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell tower ...

s with a

peal of bells A "ring of bells" is the name bell ringers give to a set of bells hung for English full circle ringing. The term "peal of bells" is often used, though peal also refers to a change ringing performance of more than about 5,000 changes. By rin ...

– across Australia and

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

History

ANZAB was formed in 1962, through the renaming of the ''New South Wales Association of Change Ringers'' and the inclusion of ringers from other Australian states and New Zealand. Its purpose is, "To encourage and provide for the installation, restoration, augmentation and maintenance of rings of bells and to provide technical, financial and other assistance in respect thereof." The NSW association was formed in 1946 by visiting

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

sailors from the

British Pacific Fleet The British Pacific Fleet (BPF) was a Royal Navy formation that saw action against Japan during the Second World War. The fleet was composed of empire naval vessels. The BPF formally came into being on 22 November 1944 from the remaining ships ...

who brought their skills to the six existing towers around Sydney. Before the formation of the association, a

quarter peal Method ringing (also known as scientific ringing) is a form of change ringing in which the ringers commit to memory the rules for generating each change of sequence, and pairs of bells are affected. This creates a form of bell music which is contin ...

had not been rung in NSW during the previous 40 years. As of 2014, ANZAB has around 500 members who ring at 64 bell towers.

Functions

Aside from regular religious services, ringing is often conducted for special occasions such as state funerals, anniversaries, memorials and other locally or nationally significant events. For example, there was a national simultaneous ringing of bells in celebration of the centenary of the

Federation of Australia The Federation of Australia was the process by which the six separate British self-governing colonies of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia (which also governed what is now the Northern Territory), and Western A ...

on 1 January 2001. ANZAB is affiliated with the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers, founded in 1891 and based in the United Kingdom. While most bells are hung in churches, there is no expectation of religious affiliation among the ringers themselves. ANZAB has branches in most Australian states, and these branches foster and encourage ringing at a local level through education and training. The branches organise regional ringing events, such as striking competitions, local advanced ringing sessions, and inter-tower visits and tours. ANZAB itself holds an annual ringing festival in conjunction with its Annual General Meeting. The location of the festival changes from year to year and is usually held in locations where two or more towers are easily accessible. ANZAB publishes a quarterly journal, ''Ringing Towers'', containing articles of general interest to bellringers, reports of social and ringing events in Australia and New Zealand, and all Quarter Peals and

Peal In campanology (bell ringing), a peal is the special name given to a specific type of performance of change ringing which meets certain exacting conditions for duration, complexity and quality. The definition of a peal has changed considerably ...

s rung for ANZAB or in ANZAB territory. The state branches also publish newsletters or websites related to their activities. In recognition of the lifesaving

cardiopulmonary resuscitation Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is an emergency procedure consisting of chest compressions often combined with artificial ventilation in an effort to manually preserve intact brain function until further measures are taken to restore spont ...

(CPR) provided to

Alan Coates Alan Stuart Coates (born 27 June 1943) is an Australian professor of clinical oncology, medical researcher and administrator. He was the inaugural CEO of the Cancer Council Australia (1998–2006), former president of the Clinical Oncologica ...

who suffered a heart-attack while ringing in 2015, ANZAB now provides for first-aid and CPR training for two members in each tower. ANZAB members also ring changes on

handbells A handbell is a bell designed to be rung by hand. To ring a handbell, a ringer grasps the bell by its slightly flexible handle – traditionally made of leather, but often now made of plastic – and moves the arm to make the hinged cla ...

, a practice which was popularised in the United Kingdom during the Second World War when church bells were not allowed to be rung. As

Carillon A carillon ( , ) is a pitched percussion instrument that is played with a keyboard and consists of at least 23 cast-bronze bells. The bells are hung in fixed suspension and tuned in chromatic order so that they can be sounded harmoniou ...

bells are not rung in full-circle style they are not affiliated with, and have been criticised by, ANZAB.

List of bellringing towers

Bells are usually tuned to a

Diatonic Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are most often used to characterize Scale (music), scales, and are also applied to musical instruments, Interval (music), intervals, Chord (music), chords, Musical note, notes, musical sty ...

major scale, with the tenor bell being the tonic (or key) note of the scale. Some towers have extra bells, indicated by the + sign, which are used to allow different subsets of the full number to be rung, still to a diatonic scale. By convention, the weights of the tenor bells are shown in the

imperial unit The imperial system of units, imperial system or imperial units (also known as British Imperial or Exchequer Standards of 1826) is the system of units first defined in the British Weights and Measures Act 1824 and continued to be developed thro ...

Hundredweight The hundredweight (abbreviation: cwt), formerly also known as the centum weight or quintal, is a British imperial and US customary unit of weight or mass. Its value differs between the US and British imperial systems. The two values are distingu ...

s-quarters- pounds. Swan Bells SMC 2006

References

Bibliography

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External links

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ABC Television ABC Television most commonly refers to: *ABC Television Network of the American Broadcasting Company, United States, or *ABC Television (Australian TV network), a division of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Australia ABC Television or ABC ...

''Compass'' episode
The bells of St. Leonard's
, first broadcast 28 April 2013. *

ABC Radio National Radio National, known on-air as RN, is an Australia-wide public service broadcasting radio network run by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). From 1947 until 1985, the network was known as ABC Radio 2. History 1937: Predecessors an ...