At the OAS AGM in 2016 a resolution was passed which instructed the Committee to take steps to become a Scottish Charity Incorporated Organisation (SCIO). The point of doing this was to provide the Committee and the organisation with the benefits of incorporation and was felt to be especially useful for a number of reasons, including limiting the liability of the charity trustees, making OAS a legal personality that can undertake transactions in its own right and giving OAS the freedom to take all steps and actions in pursuit of its charitable objects (subject to any specific restriction in the constitution). SCIO’s continue to be regulated by the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR).
This action was successfully completed towards the end of 2017 and, as a result, OAS as a Charity will be wound up on 31 March 2018, and become OAS (SCIO) on 1 April 2018. All assets from OAS will transfer to OAS (SCIO). Our new registration number with OSCR is SCIO048044 and details on our registration, and the old details for Orkney Archaeology Society, can be found on the OSCR website at this link. This years accounts (2017/18) will be lodged against OAS when completed, and then the 2018/19 accounts will be for OAS (SCIO)
What does this mean for me as a member or as a supporter?
In practice there is no change to the daily business of the Society, we have the same aims and objectives and the majority of Committee members are continuing, but will now be known as Trustees.
A new logo!
To celebrate the start of OAS as a SCIO we have updated our logo. We gave the designers a general brief of wanting a logo which represented Orkney and Archaeology, without having a focus on any specific excavation given that we have a remit across Orkney as a whole rather than any individual project, and we also wanted to have our name in full as part of the logo, simply to avoid confusion with the other OAS’s in Orkney, such as the Orkney Art Society and the Orkney Agricultural Society.
So, thanks to the hard work of the lovely folk at iDesign in Quoyloo, we are the proud owners of a logo that we hope will become an easy way of spotting, across Orkney and beyond, projects that this Society has been involved with, and supported. We think the combination of the colours (green, blue and purple),the Stones and a trowel are eyecatching and a simple way of representing who we are and what we stand for. Watch out for merchandise with the new logo over the summer, which we will also be selling from our website and, as always, all profits are put towards supporting, protecting and promoting archaeology in Orkney.
If you would like to support the work of the OAS please make a donation by visiting our donation page , or consider becoming a member of the society.
The OAS supports the ongoing work at the Ness of Brodgar, more information about the dig can be found at the websites of the Ness of Brodgar Trust and the American Friends of the Ness of Brodgar Inc
The aims of Orkney Archaeology Society are:
- to support the management and development of Orkney’s archaeological & historical resource by charitable means;
and in furtherance thereof
- to serve the interests of the membership of the Society and the general public by providing information on archaeology and archaeological activity in Orkney through publications, meetings, conferences, exhibitions, projects and other activities and events.
We organise a programme of talks on the work going on in archaeology in Orkney, and we also host an exciting programme of lecture by visiting speakers – all of which are free and open to everyone. See the Events or the News areas for current information on upcoming events. We publish a newsletter for our members to keep our widely scattered membership up to date with current work and ideas. We have a publication of our own on the work done at Mine Howe and act as distributors for Rising Tides, by the county archaeologist Julie Gibson – A new edition ‘Rising Tides Revisited’ was published in July 2012.
We provide grants to archaeological projects in Orkney – although we usually have far more applications than we can possibly fund.
On an annual basis since 2007, we award the Daphne Lorimer Bursary to a student on the Masters in Archaeological Practice course run by Orkney College – this bursary covers the fees of a student who has gained a place on the course by academic merit but would otherwise be unable to raise the funds to take up the place.
Since 2008, we award the Judith Robertson Memorial Prize at graduation to a student from the Masters course.
The Society is run according to our Constitution by our management committee.