National Heritage Training Conference.

To all the delegates & speakers etc who will be attending the upcoming National Heritage & Training Group Conference.

I attended the 2012 conference, I felt that progress would be made, since then very little has changed. Delegates did not even get the promised notes and contact lists, this year may be better in that respect. However what would impress me most would be that a training for trainers program be instigated & properly funded .

Most of the Alphabet soup of Heritage Organisations all agree that craftspeople are becoming in short supply I myself have taken part in a number of Scope & Audits all of which come to the same conclusion = we need more Craftspeople .

To get those new craftspeople they will need to be trained the various craftspeople alive now have a very high average age, this is not good for the Heritage Sector as the average age should  be a lot lower, at present the Crafts are top heavy with older people many of whom will be thinking of retirement or semi-retirement. I ask that rather than have a proliferation of two day or week long courses which will not benefit anyone but the organisation that holds them. Instead invest in the craftspeople put money where you are always at present just putting empty words and establish proper training for trainers so that our skills are passed on not wasted.

Also a proper Craft Register needs to be established , at present I can work in many different Heritage Organisations areas none of which communicate with other area offices , The only Heritage Org that has recommended me is Historic Scotland - Thank You HS. Others shy away from nominating or recommendations for either fear of litigation or not wanting to become involved even though many Co's have fantastic pedigrees and sheaves of references to back up their excellent work, it shouldn't be too difficult to recommend Bona-fide Co's. 

The other year I had to go through the tendering process for a contract that was squarely in my specialist niche, but because the Heritage Org in charge stood by the 3 quote rule the other tendering Co's included had zero experience result a very na?ve bid would have been the winner.

Our Built Heritage suffers because low bids win and often won by Co's with little or no experience in work on pre-1919 buildings. I ask that the conference concentrate on getting the people who can train others equipped to do so and then do something . I had a meeting over 20 years ago with COTAC, this was with the intent of training people in my skill-set nothing ever came of that. In the 30+ years I have had my own business i have been privileged to work on many interesting historic tiling projects from Smalti mosaic to intricate encaustic & geometrics. I want to pass those skills on ,So do many other highly skilled craftspeople , it needs action not lots of Blah Blah .

Say less do more that should be the Conference Mission Statement.