I have been the Festival of Archaeology Coordinator for 3 years now and it has evolved into a wonderful celebration of heritage with world wide impact. Coordinating does not mean just sitting at a desk answering email, it involves using a lot of creativity from conception to delivery.   No one day is the same.  We started planning 2024 in 2023, we have the theme ready and negotiate with venues where we are going to hold our CBA-led events.

Next I create a mood board with ideas for the Festival banners seen in the image in this blog. We plan what organiser materials are going to be designed and delivered, this year it involved speaking to stakeholders who specialise in Safeguarding and Insurance.    We create a plan on what the schedule is going to be for contacting organisers - we don't want to flood their inboxes with content, so we limit the information output into one newsletter every two weeks and I offer a "clinic" at lunchtime and evenings for people to come online and ask for help.  Most just want to run an idea past us.

I organise Theme Day - this year the theme was Archaeology and Community. For the first time we joined with Broken Frontier and held a "Drink and Draw" on X. I, and other colleagues, were so far out of our comfort zone putting our drawings out online, but at the same time I was so proud that we just got on with it.  Graphic drawings are so valuable in creating another way to engage with people and although this event was a fun evening, it also highlighted some alternative methods of output.    We also launched our partnership with Geovay, a digital mapping app. 

Last year the Theme Day Creativity gallery reached Australia and a University there used it as an example of best practice, one of the students is coming to the UK next year to see what we do for herself. 

Every day I check in with the volunteer moderators who have been a massive help in looking at the event submissions and approving them for our website, nearly 400, each with images we have to look through to make sure they are appropriate and ensuring that they have insurance and safeguarding.

This year I actually went to see an event at John Lewis as well, they had artefacts from Roman Leicester in display cases alongside the comparable items that they sell as well as banners and a heritage trail, this was an amazing inventive way to engage audiences.

During the Festival of Archaeology my day starts with looking at the events that have been registered and the moderator comments. Creating social media output with this years imagery and checking to see if any organisers need help. Making sure we are set for the events that I manage for the CBA alongside colleagues and trying to make evaluation exciting enough that people will fill in our surveys. Without evaluation we can't know how to improve but we also can shout out about our achievements to funders and sponsors.

Each day includes a little bit of what we have been planning throughout the year, no one day is the same but because we have been so long in the planning I know it inside out and also that if something needs to change quickly how we can adapt. I am already looking forward to 2025.