Announcement of open workshops on improving practice

24/25 January 2011

Historic environment practitioners are invited to participate in a series of free open workshops. These will explore ways in which the historic environment sector across England can increase the benefits of planning-led work for the public, for the development sector and for the historic environment sector itself.

Each workshop will focus on a different aspect of understanding and sharing the significance of the historic environment and will cover the diverse needs of the built, buried and underwater resource.

Workshop discussions will lead to a report, to be published in April 2011, setting out a road map for change.

Further details of the agenda for each workshop are available at www.archaeologists.net/Southport. Please let us know if you have any comments on these agendas by writing to the email address below.

To book your place, please email southport@archaeologists.net, by 10 January 2011 indicating which of the four workshops you wish to attend. Workshops are free to attend but spaces will be allocated on a first come, first served basis. You are welcome to attend one workshop or several.

The venue for all the workshops will be the Museum of London Docklands

There will be four workshops, as follows:

24 January

10.00-1.30       Workshop 1:  How to achieve better quality in delivery (Chairs Peter Hinton, Stewart Bryant)

2.30-6.00         Workshop 2:  How to achieve better opportunities for public participation and involvement in decision making, and improved quality of publication and dissemination (Chairs Mike Heyworth and Matthew Slocombe)

25 January

10.00-1.30       Workshop 3:  How to achieve proper compilation and transfer of archive material and improved access to archives (Chairs Duncan Brown and Hedley Swain, to confirm)

2.30-6.00         Workshop 4:  How to achieve a better research focus in delivery, and how to address fragmentation in the sector (Chairs Chris Gosden, Adrian Tindall and Frank Kelsall)

At a later date, a fifth workshop of invited delegates from the property sector will ask how we are to achieve clearer focus on the needs of the client (funding) body in terms of product and proportionality.

These seminars are an initiative of the Southport Group see www.archaeologists.net/Southport for more details.