The Council Trustees have drafted a new Strategic Plan to take the Society forward over the next five years. Fellows are encouraged to read and comment on this draft using the links here. Council Trustees would prefer comments online to reduce the printing and postage costs, staff time and environmental effects. The deadline for comments is 31 January 2016.
The Strategy focuses on ensuring the independence of the Society as a charity actively supporting the research, understanding and promotion of Scotland’s past. Some questions are supplied aimed at stimulating comments on the draft Strategic Plan. These questions are designed to help Fellows consider the draft Plan and are not intended to be exhaustive.
https://www.socantscot.org/fellows/strategic-plan-2016-2021/
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Archaeology is not the only aspect of “Heritage”. There is the written heritage of Scotland and its preservation, curation and palaeography; and there is the genealogical heritage of Scotland.
Neither is adequately represented (or even mentioned!) in the Strategy!
I spend a great deal of my time “Promot
ing
Scotland’s Past” (and will be on a Fulbright professorial Fellowship in 2016 in the USA doing just that) and – believe me – hardly anyone is interested in old stones and artefacts.
Happy to discuss it!
This strategic plan is certainly ambitious, and it will require considerable sums of money to support it, thinking in particular of new accommodation. It is likely that a balance will have to be struck between all these aspirations, therefore some prioritisation would seem to be required.
On specifics:
1. There could be an element of friction between seeking to be independent and yet co-operate and take money from the government, in this case HES. Does the Council consider that it can maintain a truly independent role in such circumstances?
2. I remain concerned about publications. I use on-line publications regularly and I do not find them easy. Browsing through journals is also easier than searching on line. Having lived through fiche, and other ‘miracle cures’, I remain a little unconvinced that we have hit on the best solution, especially in these day of potential cyber attacks. Hard copy has proved its worth to date. Further, use of on-line publication has its own, almost hidden, costs in the need to keep the material up-to-date with new technology, which someone will have to pay for and there is no guarantee that in the future these costs will not have to passed on to the Society and therefore the Fellows.
That said, if it is the determination of the Society to focus on the on-line publication of excavation reports, wide discussion of the process and style of such reports is required. On-line offers great possibilities (as I have felt since the establishment of SAIR, which was on my watch) but the Scottish archaeological community needs to thrash these out together, as we did in establishing SAIR.
3. I welcome the Society’s aspiration to be an independent body speaking for the heritage.
4. I don’t see much about priorities within the Plan: it is more a list of aspirations and actions to me.
5. I agree about posting the AR on-line.
6. Under Q 6, perhaps consideration could be given to raising the Society’s image and stress the importance of our heritage in a different way. Could the Society approach the 3 leading Scottish newspapers and offer to write a weekly/monthly column discussing Scottish heritage, focussing on recent work, etc, or to magazines. Otherwise, there is an element of talking to the converted. The issue is how to reach out to other people. This was my aim with the Batsford/Historic Scotland series – the aim was to win hearts and minds. Perhaps the Society could consider publishing or supporting popular books about Scottish archaeology and history.
David
Many thanks for your response to the Strategy, we have made it public as you agreed to help prompt others to respond. However, if responding please do use the surveymonkey form where possible: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Society_Strategic_Plan_2016_2021
We will include this response in the consideration of the Strategy in 2016.
Cheers
Simon