Following the attendance and contribution of Amanda Stratton, the American Cultural Resources Association (ACRA)’s Chief Executive to our AGM and FAME Forum in June, Kenneth Aitchison, FAME’s CEO, returned the favour (favor) in September by attending and reporting to their Board meeting, and contributing to their annual conference which was held in Raleigh, North Carolina. A brief report from Kenneth on the experience:
“I informed the ACRA board about FAME activities in the last year (a tailored version of the report I gave to the FAME AGM in June), and discussed opportunities for cooperation between FAME and ACRA, and between our members. ACRA Board were particularly interested in learning about the FAME Carbon Calculator for Development-led Archaeology.
At that time ACRA had c110 members to FAME’s 73, with an overlap of three companies that are members of both. FAME and ACRA are now making plans for joint online events, presenting information, advice and guidance that will be of use to archaeological managers and employers on both sides of the Atlantic.
Immediately following the Board meeting, I was the co-organiser and co-chair of two sessions at their annual conference. I spoke in the first of these, ‘We Have A Sister!: The Development of ACRA’s Partnership Initiatives and the Formation of the Canadian Cultural Resources Association’, presenting a potted history of FAME’s role in development-led archaeology in the UK together with information about our activities (see slides below). That session also heard updates from ACRA’s other partner associations and was followed by ‘Innovations in Archaeological Field Methods: ACRA and Its International Partners’, with three papers highlighting cutting-edge methodologies being applied in the US, Canada and the UK.”
Note: FAME was not charged for travel, subsistence or other expenses for Kenneth’s attendance at this conference. His time was charged to FAME for the periods of the Board meeting and the conference sessions he was co-chairing, but all other costs were met by Headland Archaeology.
Download the slides on FAME’s history here: