Thinking for the Future...

[deadlylampshade]

Aren't most bright young diggers these days ones who've spent 3 (or often more) years at uni learning nothing whatsoever relevant? That's all we ever seem to get! People who've spent that time actually learning on the job are much preferred, at least in my book. But then, IFA don't like that... :face-stir:

So we are back to the skills based benchmark to make an archaeological company "acceptable" to construction companies who at least know something about the benchmarking quals - ISO, NVQs...(not so sure about IEMA as it doesn't apply across archaeology) and the more academic driven benchmarks which is where perhaps the IFA is possibly failing to represent archaeology across the board.

There is a need for a happy medium...standards upheld by the archaeology company which everyone understands on the client side and a meaningful progression of professional achievements for those at the sharp end.

[Dinosaur]

I would be happy to be a member of IEMA if they allowed archaeologists to join....

The Corporate Membership certificate nailed to the office wall and the logo on the stationary both look just fine, thanks :face-approve:

[BAJR]

standards upheld by the archaeology company which everyone understands on the client side and a meaningful progression of professional achievements for those at the sharp end.

This sounds like a mix between the Diggers Charter for Commercial Companies. (a benchmark of standards) and a skills passport - showing real and measurable abilities..... A construction company will not have to worry if the staff are able to show both the CSCS card and the Skills Passport (which would both match the appropriate set levels required for that site AND show value and worth to the commercial company - so staff are paid for what they do... )

[gwyl]

The Corporate Membership certificate nailed to the office wall and the logo on the stationary both look just fine, thanks :face-approve:

but for individuals a not insignificant number of the criteria for joining seem to be a long way from archaeology; Corporate Membership might be an appropriate way forward for companies with IfA membership applying for individuals - should they wish.
however, i think that the IfA offers better potential for career development in archaeology; we need to have some method of indicating a person's skill-set, and at a higher level in the IfA a return to Areas of Expertise would also - as has been mentioned on another thread - cover people such as illustrators become MIfA or whatever grade appropriate. it also has the benefit of defining MIfAs in terms of what they are and are not competent to carry out; their very own skills passport, if you will.
The Digger's Charter is clearly a useful exercise within the profession but is separate and, i suspect, largely of little consequence to the construction industry. aspects of it - such as skills passport - are however capable of being integrated into a CPD - which of course the IEMA, as the IfA, require of individual members - but any CPD-exercise is going to require the cooperation of employers, the various bodies such as BAJR, IfA, CBA (etc) representing or providing a voice for archaeologists. at the moment any benchmarking exercise for field-staff is doomed by everyone pulling in various directions with a result that consensus, which is there, doesn't come to enough action.
The Digger's Charter and the Digger's Forum Campaign for a Living Wage are both striving to effect some change but when only half-a-dozen people turned up to the DF meeting last month one wonders whether there is any point to it. membership of organisations be it IfA or union relies on the members being involved - and god knows - there's little enough time in the day, what with filling out that CPD form, digging holes, recording writing up and preparing the next risk assessment and researching that EIA - but we must ensure that a Skills Passport has equivalence with IfA CPD otherwise archaeology has no cohesion as a discipline in the eyes of the construction industry but also the skills gained by practitioners are circumscribed by whether you are or are not IfA or any other body: internal wrangling doesn't need to be made public for the sake of it

[Unitof1]

Picked up a small evaluation guaranteed not to find anything yesterday. I started by telling them about my continuing professional development but they kept going on about the price, they said they had a quote for 5 grand. I said I could do it for about ?500 if they signed a piece of paper with fancy writing saying that I was the best archaeologist in the whole world. I started yesterday.

[gwyl]

I started by telling them about my continuing professional development.

why on earth would you do that?

[Unitof1]

point taken

[gwyl]

they said they had a quote for 5 grand. I said I could do it for about ?500

nice one - outrageous that ?5K was price for small eval - how many trenches?
excessive costs are bad for future of commercial archaeology - it's as bad as running loss-leaders on evals to pick up the full exc.

[Unitof1]

5. I think excessive costs are good-not too worried about the future of commercail archaeology I leave that to the market place. And PS by the time I have finished with this client I will have squeezed a good part of that five grand out of them.

[gwyl]

And PS by the time I have finished with this client I will have squeezed a good part of that five grand out of them.

interesting business model
the market will prevail i am sure