2023 Set-up Week
We're finally here! It's the first week of the 2023 season of SHARP.
Our team are now onsite on Boneyard field and have been working hard over the last week to get the site ready for the season ahead. The toilets and shower blocks are in, the kitchen is clean, the marquee is up, and we have even managed to improve the look of the site by adding a few flowers too.
One of the biggest and most obvious changes this year is the arrival of our new solar array, making Boneyard much greener (and quieter) than previous seasons. This new set-up allows us to run the site almost entirely on solar energy and is working really well! Even on cloudier days the old generator only kicks in for a couple of hours first thing in the morning before the array takes over and the generator goes quiet again. It is great to be more sustainable and Boneyard is noticeably quieter without the constant hum of the generator. We would like to say a massive THANK YOU to the Norfolk Community Foundation for supporting us this season in going green. This would not have been possible without you.
The excavation site is nearly ready to go too. The site tent still needs to go up and we are planning to add another gazebo this year for more shade but the gardening has been done and we are ready to start work with our first week of volunteers and course attendees.
All in all a great set up week with lots of jokes and plenty of fun had alongside all the hard work. The team are ready to welcome everyone and we are looking forward to seeing what the archaeology will bring this season.
We do have a couple of notices as the new season gets underway.
Request for raffle/tombola prizes
Firstly, we are now in full swing organising our Festival of Archaeology, scheduled for Sunday 23rd July 2023 (make sure to put the date in your diaries). As usual, we will be hosting lots of activities throughout the day and one such event is a raffle and a tombola. Therefore, if anyone has anything suitable for raffle/tombola prizes that they would be willing to kindly donate, we would be very grateful if you could bring them to site and drop off with either Ann or Brenda in the Finds hut. Thank you!
The Mystery of Mr J. Elvey
We also have a bit of a mystery to solve. While sorting out one of our trailers this week, the team found a couple of old film roll cameras. Unfortunately, they are too old for us to use but they may be of interest to some camera enthusiasts so we could look to sell them to help raise some funds for SHARP. However, one of these cameras has the name Mr J. Elvey and an address in the case. Before we look to sell the camera, we want to make sure it does not belong to Mr Elvey. It is possible Mr Elvey once donated his camera to SHARP, but we want to make sure it wasn't once left on site and never collected. Was Mr Elvey once a SHARP volunteer? If anyone remembers working with him, or indeed Mr Elvey himself sees this blog, we would be grateful if you could get in touch so we can solve this little mystery.
Fundraiser Update
Finally, we want to say a massive thank you to our own Ellie Blakelock and everyone who donated to her recent fundraising campaign. The campaign raised a grand total of £2050 for SHARP which will go a long way to helping us with rising costs this season. Ellie will be sharing daily updates in her Director Site Diary of the progress and discoveries made on trench. These will be short and not include everything as we wouldn't want to spoil the weekly blogs, but they will have the daily highlights. Make sure to follow us on Facebook for these updates!
Well done and thank you to all the team for their hard work this week getting everything ready onsite. We are looking forward to welcoming you all for another great summer of archaeology!
