YORK CONSORTIUM FOR CONSERVATION AND CRAFTSMANSHIP
The Institute of Conservation is pleased to advertise the fifth year of its training bursaries scheme. Twelve 12-month internships will start this September as part of the extended scheme generously supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. Four Icon Internships are offered as well, in direct partnership with employers and funders. Venues include private and public sector conservation workshops across the UK, offering a range of experience including conservation of archives, stone, textiles, stained glass, furniture, frames and leather as well as Collections Care. Closing date is 7th June 2010. Information on all placements and details of eligibility can be found on the Icon website at www.icon.org.uk.
Once again the Consortium’s AGM will be combined with the annual John Shannon Conservation Lecture (mounted jointly with the York Civic Trust), the presentation of the 2010 bursaries, and a display of the work of last year’s winners. The event, on Thursday 17 June, will again be held in the Merchant Adventurers’ Hall by kind permission of the Governor and Company. The programme begins at 7pm with the AGM. This is followed at 7.30 by a reception and the display of work in the Undercroft. At 8pm in the main Hall the 2010 bursaries winners will be announced and presented with their cheques, followed by the John Shannon Lecture. The speakers this year are Chris Webb and Catherine Dand from the Borthwick Institute who will describe the problems they faced and overcame in conserving the Lascelles Barbados Archive from Harewood House. This archive presented to the University of York by the Harewood family, contains fascinating papers from the 18th century relating to the management of the sugar plantations in Barbados which made the family’s fortune. The later storage of the papers had led to considerable damage and fragility.
The Foundation’s Bursary Scheme to assist the training of craftsmen and conservators has continued to attract support. Not only were new and repeat donations being received for the Fund, but equally importantly sympathetic organisations also came forward to offer their own bursaries alongside those of the Foundation. This has been particularly valuable as falling interest rates reduce the income from the invested Fund. The bursaries offered in previous years by the Freemasons, the York Company of Merchant Taylors and the Yorkshire Region of the Historic Houses Association have been supplemented this year by others from the Dulverton Trust, making a total sum of £11,000 available, and providing the prospect of maintaining a similar sum in 2011.
Applications for the bursaries have been received and the winners will be announced at the Consortium's AGM on 17 June 2010.The Trustees of the scheme are extremely grateful to the above organisations for this very positive expression of support for their aims, and also to the following recent donors:
H B Allen Charitable Trust York Vikings Rotary Club
Geoffrey Donald Lord Barnby Charitable Trust
Fitton Trust Kenneth Hargreaves Charitable Trust
Building Limes Forum Gordon Fraser Charitable Trust
Jessie Spencer Trust York DFAS
Lord Faringdon Charitable Trust
Since her arrival as Regional Co-ordinator for the Yorkshire and Humber NHTA Sophie Norton has been building up contacts among craftsmen, training establishments and historic property owners in the Region. However her primary focus has been to identify, and if possible obtain, funding for advanced craft training. To this end she sponsored two major bids to the Enhancement Fund of the Learning and Skills Council, each for £0.25m, the first to be led by Craven College but including the Construction Departments of other North and West Yorkshire FE colleges, the second to be led by Barnsley College covering South Yorkshire. Although the Barnsley bid was rejected, that for Craven went forward. Delays are being experienced in getting the official contract signed, but every effort is being made to enable the Colleges involved to start their training provision in February as planned. In the meanwhile they are preparing their plans for publicising the scheme to potential users. It will then be necessary to win the support of as many employers as possible, in order to demonstrate a real demand for craft training, but the availability of funding should make this an attractive opportunity.
The National Heritage Training Group of the Construction Skills Council is seeking to better guarantee the future quality of work on historic buildings by promoting an extension to the CSCS card. The CSCS card already exists to ensure the competence and safety of individuals working on construction sites, the cards being endorsed with the particular qualifications of the holder. It is hoped that the necessary advanced skills required for heritage buildings can become added endorsements to the card, so that in time only those with a suitably endorsed card would be accepted to do such work. To obtain the endorsement in future would require the demonstration of an appropriate level of skill via an NVQ, but those craftsmen already possessing such skills have the opportunity until September 2010 to obtain their cards by a simpler method of authentication. The NHTA is keen that all such expert craftsmen should support this initiative (which should help to protect their craft skills against the cowboys) by applying for appropriate cards for themselves. The NHTA Regional Co-ordinators are providing support and advice to facilitate this. Members are encouraged to contact Sophie Norton, co-ordinator for Yorkshire and Humberside, to pursue this important development to protect their crafts. Her e-mail address is sn577@york.ac.uk and she can be contacted by telephone on 01904 433950 or 07825 885656.