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 Archaeology News : IFA Codes updated at AGM September 2005 |
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| Posted by ifa-admin on 29/9/2005 12:12:59 (2026 reads) | |||
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26 September 2005, 2.00 pm, Society of Antiquaries, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London Seminar: Protect and survive: preparing for changes in how we identify and manage the heritage The Heritage Protection Review in England seeks to make simpler, more transparent and more accountable the processes by which we identify and protect heritage assets. Proposals include a unified list to replace the existing multiplicity of designation regimes, reforms to the way assets are placed on or taken off the register, and improvements to the means by which we manage change to designated sites, structures and landscapes. In Scotland, where scheduling criteria have recently been reformed, consideration is now being given to the concept of the unified list. But what do these changes mean for the profession? Peter Beacham (English Heritage) outlined the issues surrounding designation, regulatory regimes, management agreements and local delivery; and will report on the drafting of the white paper · Andrew Wright (Historic Environment Advisory Council for Scotland) reported on discussions so far in Scotland, with insights into ideas different from those prevailing in England There was also discussion of the implications for the historic environment professions: work profiles, training, resources… and the roles of the relevant professional institutes. At the AGM new Disciplinary regulations were adopted, and also new Bylaws and Guidance Notes for Registered Archaeologuical Organisations, see Disciplinary code Regulations for the Registration of Archaeological Organisations and Guidance notes for applying organisations |
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| Archaeology News : Working in historic towns: The Archaeologist 57 |
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| Posted by ifa-admin on 14/9/2005 10:01:43 (1904 reads) | |||
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The Archaeologist 57 has the theme Working in historic towns. It includes several papers deriving from our Winchester Conference, with articles on influencing decision makers, public archaeology, building materials, and regeneration issues. Other articles include results of recent work in Edinburgh, Birmingham, Lincoln, Bedford, Huntingdon and Nantwich, and also cover Archaeology and Politics and excellent advice on writing a CV for an archaeological job. This issue also includes IFA's Annual Report for 2004/5. The next issue will have the theme Working with finds. |
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| Archaeology News : New deals for IFA members (Aerial Close-up and Vodaphone) |
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| Posted by ifa-admin on 9/8/2005 17:10:47 (2027 reads) | |||
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New discounted offers to IFA members Aerial Close-up Ltd Aerial Photography from the Ground - Specialists in low-level aerial photography for archaeologists, operating a remote control camera attached to a 20-metre telescopic mast mounted on a 4x4 on/off road vehicle. This firm offers a 10% discount to IFA members who quote their IFA membership number. Vodafone also offers some special deals on mobile phones to IFA members. For details see www.vodafone-offers.com/members/ |
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| Archaeology News : Prospect Newsletter June 2005 outlines problems and opportunities on pay |
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| Posted by ifa-admin on 21/7/2005 9:52:07 (1828 reads) | |||
| Prospect Newsletter June 2005 outlines the problems of archaeological pay and conditions, what the union, working with IFA, is planning to do, and includes a piece on IFA's new Diggers' Forum Group |
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| Archaeology News : Training the Trainers: teaching archaeological skills in the field |
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| Posted by ifa-admin on 12/7/2005 16:00:53 (1855 reads) | |||
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Training the Trainers One area where training opportunities are especially needed is at the crucial stage of the ‘entry level’. This is the training that allows people seeking to enter the profession to be able to demonstrate that they have the skills needed to be archaeologists. While some skills are learned alongside the academic content of university courses, entry level training is the enhancement of those basic skills to allow graduates to join the workforce effectively. IFA has coordinated a two year experimental project, in-part funded by the European Commission’s Leonardo Da Vinci II programme, which sought to explore the training challenges facing early career archaeologists. The aims of the project were to identify practical solutions and suggest constructive ways forward for training practice. The outcomes of the project have been to build on existing practices within the profession of on the job learning by developing a structure where by colleagues and peers can support the skills development of early career entrants. The model suggested is one of coach-mentoring and the manuals produced by this project, now freely available at Training the Trainers, offer practical suggestions for the integration of such a model into the workplace and into a structure of continuing professional development. These manuals have been created from the combined experience of field-practitioners from ten European countries, based at project partner organisations in France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The team worked together over two seasons of fieldwork at Bibracte in France, designing, testing, evaluating and fine-tuning the material that makes up these manuals. This involved individuals from different backgrounds and with different levels of experience – the team was made up of both archaeologists who had experience of being site or area supervisors and career-entrants – working together in excavation and survey to develop the best ways to learn from each other and to pass on skills. These are not archaeological field-manuals, but training handbooks. These manuals are based on the recognition that much professional training is delivered in the field, on an ad hoc basis, by already skilled practitioners. They intend to explain the practice of coach-mentoring, how it works, how it can be applied in the workplace and what it is hoped it may achieve. On a wider level, they offer guidance and support to those archaeologists who are already informal training deliverers. The manuals are designed to be of use to practitioners at all levels in the profession. They aim to widen outlooks, offer concrete assistance, and suggest ways to make it easier to deliver quality training within a framework that can be applied flexibly in different work situations, providing a toolkit of techniques that can be applied together or separately. |
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| Archaeology News : Tessa Jowell tells IFA that ‘heritage is at the heart of national life' |
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| Posted by ifa-admin on 27/3/2005 12:40:27 (2785 reads) | |||
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For the full text of speeches by Tessa Jowell, Peter Hinton and Martin Biddle see [url=Conferences page Tessa Jowell, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, chose the IFA’s annual conference in Winchester (23 March 2005) as the occasion for launching her personal vision of the relationship between Government and heritage, telling a packed hall full of conference delegates that heritage is at the heart of national life, and is important both for its intrinsic value and for its instrumental value in delivering social and economic benefits that are core to Government strategy. She emphasised her strong personal commitment to heritage and said she was astounded at what she called the ‘the revolution in public interest in archaeology’, citing 63 million visitors annually to heritage sites, and audiences of 3 million-plus for such blockbuster TV programmes as Time Team: ‘that is 3 million people preferring to use their spare time on a Sunday afternoon to watch archaeology on TV rather than engaging in any of the many other forms of leisure activity on offer’, she said, adding that the Young Archaeologists’ Club was ‘the fastest-growing youth movement in the UK’. The questions for Government, she said, were how to support and encourage the dedicated and indispensable work undertaken by archaeologists, how to allow people to participate in the excitement of archaeology, how to reach out to young people, who have the responsibility for the future of the historic environment. She paid tribute to professional archaeologists, telling the conference audience that they were ‘expert interpreters, skilled at unlocking the stories hidden in the landscape, and making the case for the contribution of heritage to our national life’, describing the historic environment not just as a ‘backdrop’ to national life, but as a ‘bridge’ between past, present and future that helps to define national, regional and local identities. She accused those who wanted to sweep the historic environment away of ‘robbing communities of their identity and character’ and said that the historic environment was integral to regeneration, which must work to ‘produce places that enrich people’s lives, not diminish them’. On specifics, she pointed to the Heritage Protection Review as a key reform, bringing all heritage assets under one regime, describing those assets in new ways that made them easier to understand and that brought out their value and significance; she said that new management agreements would make it easier for stakeholders to manage those assets, and she said that English Heritage was piloting new historic environment services at sub-regional level. All these reforms would be brought together in a Heritage White Paper in 2006, to create a heritage protection system that was transparent and accountable. Summing up, the Secretary of State said that archaeologists were ‘never shy in coming forward with fresh ideas’ and ‘always generating fresh insights into our past’, and so she hoped archaeologists would continue to ‘enrich a debate that sits at the centre of government discussions about the best way to achieve sympathetic and lasting regeneration of our towns and rural areas’. ‘At last the Government understands what we stand for’, say IFA members The response to the Secretary of State’s IFA conference speech was warm and appreciative. IFA Director, Peter Hinton, FSA, MIFA, thanked Tessa Jowell for finding the time to address the conference and said that her speech was ‘what we have all been waiting a long time to hear’. The historic environment, he said, was about ‘who we are, where we came from, and what our values are; archaeology is a potent social and economic force and has great potential’. He acknowledged that not everyone has access to archaeology yet, but said that that was changing, thanks in no small part to the work of the Heritage Lottery Fund, which had invested billions in heritage and access and had literally changed many people’s lives as a result. An important role for Government, he said, was ‘gap filling in areas where privately funded archaeology does not go’, and he looked forward to continuing a dialogue with DCMS on that subject, now that ‘it is obvious that Government understands what we stand for’. The reaction from the conference floor was equally warm, albeit tempered by the realisation that an election is now only forty-three days away. ‘Will we have to start all over again with a new Secretary of State’, asked Rowan Whimster, FSA, MIFA, who added: ‘Ministers have a habit of moving on just as you have got their ear’. Kate Clark, FSA, MIFA, Deputy Director of Policy and Research at the Heritage Lottery Fund, was thrilled: ‘She’s doing the mainstreaming that we have been asking for for years’, she said: ‘now we can move on from the question of whether heritage delivers social and economic benefits, and start asking how to optimise delivery of those values.’ (Report by Christopher Catling) |
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| Archaeology News : Workplace Learning Bursaries bid submitted to HLF |
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| Posted by ifa-admin on 18/3/2005 17:23:15 (1968 reads) | |||
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Training for Archaeologists Workplace Learning Bursaries bid submitted to HLF The IFA has submitted a bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund to fund workplace learning bursaries in archaeological skills development. If the bid is successful, the bursaries will support 8-10 work based learning placements a year, covering a wide variety of archaeological skills. The placements are being offered by heritage organisations working with the IFA to develop structured training, based on the National Occupational Standards in Archaeological Practice, and are structured so that they may lead, or contribute, to a vocational qualification. A decision on the bid is expected in December. For more information, visit the project web-page at Workplace Learning Bursaries or contact Kate Geary, IFA Training and Standards Co-ordinator, SHES, University of Reading, Whiteknights, PO Box 227, Reading, RG6 6AB Tel/fax: 01782 321339 or email Kate Geary |
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| Archaeology News : Guidelines to the Standards for Recording Human Remains |
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| Posted by ifa-admin on 4/11/2004 15:39:23 (3357 reads) | |||
| Guidelines to the Standards for Recording Human Remains, IFA Paper No. 7, Ed. Megan Brickley and Jacqueline McKinley, sets out the latest advice for the correct scientific treatment of cremated and inhumed archaeological human remains. This publication, which was written by the British Association for Biological Osteoarchaeology, includes papers by many of Britain's leading human remains specialists. See Guidelines to the standards for recording human remains |
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| Archaeology News : Disaster Management Planning for Archaeological Archives |
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| Posted by ifa-admin on 4/11/2004 15:28:37 (4279 reads) | |||
| Disaster Management Planning for Archaeological Archives IFA paper No. 8, by Kenneth Aitchison, is now available online. It gives clear advice and guidelines for avoiding disasters such as fire, floods and theft, and for coping with them if they do occur. The advice covers paper, digital and photographic archives, plus pottery and other artefact collections common in archaeological collections, whether in museums or in archaeological stores. See Disaster Management Plan |
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