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11th October 2011, 06:47 PM
There are still plenty of archaeological organisations that aren't RAOs and don't wish to be (I work for one), and there's probably a
majority of practising commercial archaeologists who as individuals have already demonstrated that they have no interest in IFA by not joining - Chartered Status is merely a cynical ploy by IFA to get at all that revenue they're currently missing out on. Yes, I'd imagine I do qualify for instant MIFA status, but frankly if there's any compulsion involved then I'm not so old that I can't find a different line of work (and lets face it, almost anything pays better than digging holes) where I'm not getting f***ed-over by a reputed group of 'colleagues' with their own private agenda
!
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12th October 2011, 01:45 PM
yep and the reason that almost anything pays better than digging holes is.................
colleagues with a private agenda? its a democratic institution so private agendas dont really come into it unless nobody votes against them - jesus h f****g christ
If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers
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12th October 2011, 05:59 PM
To summarise: Unit will only join the IfA if he/she is allowed to write the code of conduct, and Dinosaur won't join if it's not compulsory and won't join if it becomes compulsory.
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12th October 2011, 06:36 PM
To be honest, I wouldn't be particularly happy to be compelled to join the IFA in order to continue to do my job, either.
You know Marcus. He once got lost in his own museum
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12th October 2011, 07:07 PM
Martin Locock Wrote:To summarise: Unit will only join the IfA if he/she is allowed to write the code of conduct, and Dinosaur won't join if it's not compulsory and won't join if it becomes compulsory.
Eeer, no, wouldn't join it at all under
any circumstances, decided that in 1988 (when a member of their validation committee volunteered the information that actually there
wasn't any point any of our diggers joining except to boost their paper membership numbers) and haven't seen any reason from them in the meantime to change that viewpoint
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12th October 2011, 07:12 PM
I understand, but I believe this is the only way out of the Low standards of practice / Lack of enforceable standards / Poor pay and conditions loop that has been running since 1990 or whenever. At present there is no remedy which can prevent a consistently extremely bad practitioner from damaging the archaeological resource, and if we subscribe to the rhetoric that the resource is finite, irreplaceable and important, then I think we have to accept a degree of control on our actions.
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12th October 2011, 07:14 PM
Dinosaur: a lot has changed since 1988; IfA might have.
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12th October 2011, 07:21 PM
I don't think Marcus and Dinosaur need to worry. I have just had a look at the Maths the IFA has over 2800 members so let's be generous and say 2850 or there abouts. The profiling the profession document of 2007 -2008 says there are around 6865 UK archaeologists. I believe since then there has been a loss of jobs bringing the total to around 5800 archaeologist. So at the most it is only around half (and probably less) of all UK archaeologist belong to the IFA. Of those only 4% could be bothered to vote for the Committee (around 114 individuals). Hardly a mandate for a change as great as Chartered status would be is it.
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12th October 2011, 07:38 PM
Martin Locock Wrote:I understand, but I believe this is the only way out of the Low standards of practice / Lack of enforceable standards / Poor pay and conditions loop that has been running since 1990 or whenever. At present there is no remedy which can prevent a consistently extremely bad practitioner from damaging the archaeological resource, and if we subscribe to the rhetoric that the resource is finite, irreplaceable and important, then I think we have to accept a degree of control on our actions.
Time then for IFA to clean shop and get rid of all the members/RAOs covered by your list above (we all know of plenty of cases, no point pretending it doesn't happen)? Standards, conditions etc are not noticeably different (if at all) inside and outside the IFA universe, commercial considerations are far more important to most management. If mine thought there was any advantage to being a RAO they'd apply like a shot, but there isn't, stuff like ISOs are far more relevent and more likely to get work from hard-nosed construction managers
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14th October 2011, 07:17 PM
I voted. But only because I got a few e-mails from folk persuading me too.
The IfA and the things they do are a bit too far removed from 'work at the coalface' as-it-were for people to care about who is actually 'in office' and running the IfA. The Diggers Forum goes some way to bridging the gap, I hope it continues to strive in the organisation.
