As President of the Derby Diocesan Association of Church Bell Ringers, it gives me great pleasure, on behalf of all our members, to welcome the Central Council to Derby for its 2010 meeting. This is the third time the Council has visited Derbyshire: the first being in 1901 when Sir Arthur Heywood, who lived at Duffield, was the first President of the Council and the second in 1977, when it was announced at the reception for the Council that Derby was to be the Jubilee City. We hope you will find time to enjoy our lovely countryside as well as ringing on a selection of our bells.

Derbyshire is a county which varies enormously in appearance, from the stark, but beautiful, area of the Peak District with its stone walls in the north to the rolling countryside of the National Forest in the south. I hope that the Council meeting will be both interesting and successful.

Pat Halls

Welcome to the Diocese of Derby. We are honoured to be hosting this meeting of the Central Council.

Bell ringing provides part of the music of worship, calling and connecting all who would hear with the prayers and praise of the church and community. Like every exercise of ministry, Bell Ringers know that public performance depends upon practice, continuing dedication and the discipline to inhabit cold buildings!

I hope that your meeting is a time of blessing and renewal. Thank you for your ministry of witness and invitation to so many.

+Alastair