IfA to be abolished and replaced by......

[Wax]

I wonder if the voting apathy within the IFA is a reflection of what the majority of its members really feel about it?

[pdurdin]

It doesn't say that. It says 'the yearbook introduces them to an audience of 5000 other members and specifiers of archaeological work'

So it does! I completely missed that...my mistake!

I cant find any broken pages on the website. There are pages restricted to members, for which you may get an error message if not logged in, but that's about it.

I ran into quite a few when I was applying for membership. Not just restricted pages, pages that didn't exist.

My membership has just lapsed, and I'm not sure that I see any benefit to re-applying right now. As a student, it's basically just a magazine subscription.

[kevin wooldridge]

So you admit at least the possibility then Kevin that the membership of the IfA may well be weighted towards those who are not out in the field having direct contact with archaeology? Leading to a situation where the IfA's view is distorted by a membership who's dealings with archaeology are more theoretical than practical?

I wouldn't admit that at all. I assumed Mike T to be referring to the lowest grade of archaeological assistant on any site and not taking in to account supervisors, assistant supervisors, finds and environmental staff, project officers, site directors, surveyors, photographers etc etc.

I am sure that the majority of IfA members have some direct connection with field work. It would be a mistake to assume that those who get the wettest and dirtiest, valuable though they are, make up the only members of our profession who directly interface with the resource.....

[Sikelgaita]

I am sure that the majority of IfA members have some direct connection with field work. It would be a mistake to assume that those who get the wettest and dirtiest, valuable though they are, make up the only members of our profession who directly interface with the resource.....

The 2013 IfA Yearbook (it was the only one I had immediately to hand) lists the names of c.2,200 IfA members . Where are the other 3,000. I presume they are Affiliate members, many of whom are students and probably not interfacing with the resource in quite the same way. I also wonder why so few of the lower grade fieldwork staff that I know are members.

[Dinosaur]

I'm afraid (well, maybe not...) that I've hardly worked with any diggers who were IFA/IfA members (of any grade) in the 30-odd years it's been in existence, and I've worked all over for dozens of units - where exactly are all these member diggers clustering? Or are they all just too embarrassed to admit wasting their wages? It gets discussed regularly in the pub and hardly ever does anyone put their hand up

[Mike.T.]

Maybe all the IfA members are hiding from you and me both Dinosaur. I think there are a great deal of members who seem either to be in management, retired or actually working in other professions outside of Archaeology and have joined or still pay their subs out of an interest in the subject. People I've talked to ( the so called ''low grade'' staff as have been labelled here ) see it as the waste of time and money that it is, no improvement to your actual pay and working conditions.

On the plus side you do get your name published in the back of a magazine ........

[Jack]

I'm afraid (well, maybe not...) that I've hardly worked with any diggers who were IFA/IfA members (of any grade) in the 30-odd years it's been in existence, and I've worked all over for dozens of units - where exactly are all these member diggers clustering? Or are they all just too embarrassed to admit wasting their wages? It gets discussed regularly in the pub and hardly ever does anyone put their hand up

I came across quite a few diggers who were memebers of the IfA at the Oxford Unit.

Never met any since I moved back up north...............says it all:face-stir:}

[Dinosaur]

On the plus side you do get your name published in the back of a magazine ........

But sooooo much more satisfying appearing in bibliographies

...and one day I'll get a translator to tell me what they've been saying about me in all the Scandinavian ones... :0

[Tool]

I wouldn't admit that at all. I assumed Mike T to be referring to the lowest grade of archaeological assistant on any site and not taking in to account supervisors, assistant supervisors, finds and environmental staff, project officers, site directors, surveyors, photographers etc etc.

I am sure that the majority of IfA members have some direct connection with field work. It would be a mistake to assume that those who get the wettest and dirtiest, valuable though they are, make up the only members of our profession who directly interface with the resource.....

So the people above, myself included, are either lying or deluded when we say that we know of next to no field staff who are even interested in being members of the IfA? And in my admittedly brief experience that includes supervisors, POs, photographers (who tend to be as much the 'lowest grade' as anyone else), finds and environmental staff... We're mad to suggest that a percentage of the membership may be there purely because they feel they have to be? That another percentage of the membership may not in fact have much contact with archaeology at all? This really gets to the nub of the problem - from our point of view the IfA is irrelevant and possibly living in an alternative universe, to the IfA's point of view, everything is fine and absolute membership numbers count for everything rather than numbers who actively support them, that it's our fault if we don't feel they're of benefit to us rather than theirs for not even attempting to understand the concerns and issues. Maybe that's the problem with having a group, pretty much self-elected and self-perpetuating, in a monopoly position.

Time for me to bow out of this discussion, file it under Ivory Towers Syndrome - Of No Direct Relevance, and continue enjoying my job.

[Dinosaur]

Shame! I've always regarded having 'spirited discussions' about IfA as part of my job - a particularly good one in a pub in the midlands in 1988 resulted in a member of the Validation Committee conceding that membership was of no value whatsoever to diggers - nothing's changed there then in the intervening quarter century...