Tuesday 7 February 2012

Backside Boost for Heritage Action's New STOP Campaign

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If you look at the comments section of the Heritage Action post I mentioned the other day, you will see some tekkie twisting and turning about whether the bodies who signed the Coder of Practice for Responsible Metal Detecting in England and Wales actually did mean it when they put their names to and authority behind it. The campaign's message is that these bodies don’t support metal detecting without reporting all finds to the Portable Antiquities Scheme. Now Shane Rear, owner of the (“premier”) UK metal detecting forum – Detectorist.co.uk has made a bit of an arse (sorry, ass) of himself. He has tweeted to the CBA’s Mike Heyworth, Culture Minister Jeremy Hunt and English Heritage asking:
“Can you confirm you have given endorsement and ok’d to state endorsement on this flyer?” to which Dr Heyworth has replied “I’ve had no contact with Heritage Action re new STOP campaign, but I support the point they are making”.
So it is that the days of the irresponsible majority free-riding on the backs of a fully-recording minority seem to be drawing to an ignominious close. I doubt Mr Rear will be able to find any official bodies in England that support "metal detecting without full recording". And if he does, their names will be posted up in big green letters on this blog.
UPDATE 7.02.12 Oh Dear, Mr Rear...

"PS ………………
English Heritage have now tweeted their answer to Mr Rear: “We advocate responsible detecting & reporting of all finds but we are not aware of the new STOP campaign & have not signed up to it” to which Mr Rear has replied (still conspicuously anxious to get them to appear opposed to the aim of the nSTOP Campaign) “Thank you for your clarification, it is as I thought and will EH be asking for the endorsement to be removed?”..."
Will they? How can they? I do hope Mr Rear's UK tekkie mates are cursing him roundly for his totally ineffective provocation which is simply having the opposite effect than the one he intended.
UPDATE 7.02.12:
How pathetic can you get? Shane Rear to CBA Director Mike Heyworth:
"I have tried to messgae you Mike but you no longer follow me could you follow so I can send message"
I guess nobody is much interested in "following" a metal detectorist who opposes a campaign to encourage artefact hunters to report what they find. To add insulting behaviour to injury, the detectorist forum owner is now trying to order English Heritage about too:
I beg to differ, if you allow your name to remain on flyer you ARE giving endorsement by default. your explanation not valid [...] Organisor state those listed support campaign, if you do not officially do so you must ask for EH endorsement to be removed.
The explanation that the detectorist agitator considers "not valid" is that EH only supports artefact hunting which is done in conjunction with PAS recording.


His forum has 2551 members, how many detectorists does it take to convince Mr Rear that he's flogging a dead horse?

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