Chris and Sandra Shallis have been hosting Gospel Bell at the Bell Inn, Adderbury since October 2014 and in fact, ‘the Bell’ features in our band name for this reason! On behalf of all those who have played with Gospel Bell during the past 8 years (about 15 of us!) either in the Music room or in our more recent spot just inside the front door, we’d like to thank you Chris and Sandra and we wish you a very happy and peaceful retirement.

Chris and Sandra end their tenure on 2nd July and after that we’ll hope that the new landlords will continue hosting us from September onwards. Meanwhile, we’ve been invited to play on the Cropredy Festival fringe (in Cropredy church) on 11th August and we will be contributing to a Thanksgiving service in memory of the Revd. Sue Burchill at St Leonard’s, Banbury on 20th August. We’d also like to take this opportunity to thank the numerous churches that invite us to play for them and we’re looking forward to some exciting new events in the Autumn, including: the final Festival 200 event at St Mary’s Banbury on 23 October and a fund-raiser for Holy Trinity church Sibford on 25 November.

Wishing you a relaxing Summer,

Richard, Donald and all at Gospel Bell

Gospel Bell were delighted to make a return visit to St Mary’s Steeple Barton to play at a celebratory outdoor event to mark the retirement of several parochial church council members after many years of service. In addition to songs from our repertoire played and sung by Donald, Toni, Fran and John, Donald shared an appropriate story – which he is always able to do! Our thanks to Stephen Findlay-Saunders, Churchwarden and to the Revd Jane Wright, Rector, the Barton Benefice for inviting us to play.

Gospel Bell takes it’s name from the authentic American Gospel music that we play and our host pub since October 2014, the Bell, Adderbury. We were delighted to play during the Jubilee afternoon of music and by the time we played at 4pm, the sun was shining and the pub was full of happy people. It always encourages us to see people dancing to our music and singing along with us and yesterday’s band – Donald, John, Troy, Toni and Richard were according to our hosts Chris and Sandra, enthusiastically received by the crowds of people inside and outside the pub – Sandra said there was much toe-tapping going on! We’d like to thanks Chris and Sandra for hosting us throughout their tenure of the Bell and we wish them a happy and relaxing retirement.