18th December 2008, 11:04 AM
Quote:quote:Originally posted by 1man1desk
and it isn't any harder to visit their website than BAJR, if you are genuinely interested in what they have to say rather than in an excuse to bash them.
This thread was not started as an 'excuse to bash the IFA', it was started as I noticed that the IFA were doing something about the situation, and I thought I'd flag it up so members who don't check the IFA website every day could see they were doing things and comment, and non-members could also see they were acting. I don't think suggesting that the IFA news is emailed to its members is really bashing the IFA. If an RSS feed can be sorted that includes to BAJR/Britarch then so much the better.
Quote:quoteerhaps I'm not very imaginative, but I can't really think of anything that the IfA (or any professional body) can do to significantly alleviate the effect of the economic situation, so perhaps it is not sensible to raise expectations.
I agree the IFA has little power, but that's more to do with the size of archaeology than anything else. But as the representative body the IFA can work to ensure that standards are maintained, can encourage member organisations to sub-contract staff between them and co-operate, act as a forum for its members, and all the things Kevin mentioned like encouraging backlog work. I personally think the chance of getting large chunks of govt money to prop up archaeology is unlikely -we aren't a big enough industry. But the IFA need to lobby for what it can, and lobby to maintain effective monitoring in planning.
Yeah I'm unemployed at the moment, I've a bit of freelance work in the new year, but its going to be grim. As it will be for many of us. I don't think the IFA or anyone can do much to save diggers jobs on site as there just isn't enough work for everyone, but that's just usual in archaeology -diggers just aren't valued any more. Units have already gone bust, others are close to the wall, others are shedding staff bigtime. Who knows what the future will bring, but the IFA does have a big role in ensuring that the baby doesn't get thrown out with the bath water in an internecine bloodbath that would end with everyone finished and set us all back 15 years.
I'm waiting to see what their proposals are, and hope that they will include ringfencing the few advances we have made, and implementing the benchmarking. The IFA isn't just bosses, its FAME/SCAUM you really want to watch...