I’ve been really lucky to have been working with Vanessa for nearly 12 months as her Intern and over that period I feel like I have dealt with the whole range of PAS “jobs” – treasure cases, metal detector clubs, finds surgeries and photoshopping. Vanessa thought it would be “good for me” to experience a rally before my internship with her finally comes to an end in November. So, when she asked if I would help her out at the NCMD NWrally last weekend I quickly said yes! Of course what she didn’t tell me at that stage was that normally her rallies are attended by about 50-100 detectorists, which is fine, but the NCMD NW one was expecting over 300!
So with some trepidation I set out on a lovely Sunday morning. I have to say that thanks to the organisers the whole day went like clockwork. I’ve discovered that everything Vanessa has a hand in tends to be very well organised and the process of how we dealt with finds that came in on the day was no exception. The whole set up for the logging and photographing of finds was organised with military precision.
We’d set up our little recording station in a large tent next to the tea van – which was a great move and meant we were well supplied with tea and biscuits all day. The plan was that Alex, another of Vanessa’s volunteers, would start off by taking down finders details and the field number where the object was found. It would then passed down our little conveyer belt to Vanessa who would do the identification, then finally on to me to measure and photograph – job done!
Togged up in our high-vis PAS and National Museum’s Liverpool jackets, and with our PAS flag fluttering outside the tent we awaited the flood of finds.
It was a shame for the organisers that there were a far fewer finds than they had hoped, but that is the reality of metal detecting
It was a great day and as for the 300+ finders – they were all great and I needn’t have been at all worried about it. This is certainly another PAS “job” that I can now tick off my list as having experienced and survived!
Oh! And I suppose I can also now add writing a blog post to that list too!
