4th July 2013:

OA East is getting involved in a community initiative called Shape Your Place in Cambridgeshire, and is able to use the initiative’s projects to promote OA East’s work, help inform local people and even get volunteers on board.

Shape Your Place is a project set up by Cambridgeshire County Council to encourage people to have a say in their neighbourhood and to help get things done. It is a platform for local people to raise concerns, share good ideas or tell people what's on in the area through posting blogs, sharing images, even uploading You Tube videos and interviews. Originally piloted in the Fenland District of Cambridgeshire, the scheme will eventually cover the entire county.

OA East has agreed to work with the project, and whenever we work in a district the we will upload a dig diary blog of the results. We may also be interviewed by the local reporters, and you'll see videos of staff and finds posted. We feel this is a great way to advertise our work and let local people know about what we are doing, perhaps on sites not suitable for regular open days. We might even find local volunteers who might get involved with projects such as Jigsaw.

Most recently Chris Thatcher and Aileen Connors kept a regular dig diary for our Huntingdon excavation, but there’s a whole range of blogs and posts from other work we've done, for example this post about an Iron Age Settlement in Chatteris. It is hoped that this might be a scheme other counties will adopt. It’s very easy to do, does not interfere and helpful for staff to get experience of telling a wider audience what they have dug!