Welcome from the General Manager

Welcome to the 2025 Summer Magazine – is it really July 2025 already?!

Here at the Kent Archaeological Society, we have had some big changes and tough times, but also a lot of great and exciting things happening.

Let me get the bad news out of the way first. Richard Taylor, our Ex-General Manager, has decided to step down after our AGM in May. Richard is still involved with the Society and is leading the Silence of the Sentinels project, dealing with some of the small scale archaeological mitigation and passing on his extensive knowledge to our team, however he does not have the capacity to continue as the Fearless Leader of the KAS.

Richard has left some big shoes to fill as General Manager and I know you will all agree, he will be missed.

We also had Kerry Brown, Richard Chaplin and Elizabeth Dixon step down as Trustees after four plus years in post. We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks for all they have contributed to the Society and hope they will continue to enjoy the KAS in their future endeavors.

We have been busy recruiting some fabulous new Trustees, so please keep an eye on our website for these changes as they are announced.

I would like to thank our remaining Trustees and in particular Elizabeth Roberts for so much help and guidance during this period of change.

Now for some better news – We have had an incredible number of volunteers and work placements at our offices and KAS library over the last 6 months. We had 7 Volunteers and 4 work placements in the last fortnight alone and another 2 placements due to commence next week. It is a lot for our very small team, but also very rewarding.

These volunteers and placements have been an invaluable asset for the KAS and are helping to arrange, catalogue and preserve our historical collections.

We also continue to welcome large numbers of volunteers to our fieldwork projects, with hundreds helping us explore the heritage of Kent through excavation in the last month alone. The KAS hosted an incredible community dig in Faversham which was wrapped up at the beginning of June, where we excavated an area at Front Brents, next to the Albion pub.

This project achieved a lot of community engagement with over 300 people taking part in the hands-on excavation, looking for 19th century buildings. The feedback we got from this event was so positive and we are excited to plan the next one.

Our online talks have seen great engagement, the talk about Otzi on the 26th June by Giselle Kiraly, had over 60 people join live, and the recordings have been attracting thousands of views via our YouTube and social media channels! The calendar for upcoming talks is now booked all the way to the end of the year and I urge you to check one out for yourself.

There are many more things I could relay but I encourage you to dive into the rest of the KAS Summer Magazine and I hope you enjoy it!

Warm regards,

Rebecca Fletcher

[fg]jpg||Image[/fg]