Roman Finds Group chose the city of Salisbury as the perfect place to celebrate our 30th anniversary at our Autumn 2017 conference, ‘New Research from Finds from South and South-Western Britain’. Over two days, Salisbury Museum provided a beautiful backdrop to our diverse programme of papers; delegates also enjoyed a private viewing of the Wessex Gallery and the special Terry Pratchett exhibition, as well as a guided tour of Salisbury Cathedral. Sarum College was a wonderful venue for our delegate accommodation and for our celebratory Reception.

RFG were thrilled to celebrate our 30th anniversary with so many founder and new members. Seen here are Justine Bayley, Stephen Greep and Quita Mould (thank you to Jackie Keily for this photograph)
RFG were thrilled to celebrate our 30th anniversary with so many founder and new members. Seen here are Justine Bayley, Stephen Greep and Quita Mould (thank you to Jackie Keily for this photograph)

RFG Committee would like to extend warm thanks to committee members Stephen Greep and Jörn Schuster for organising such a busy and successful meeting, and to Debbie Greep for our delicious, beautiful cakes. Jörn’s design for the decoration was inspired by Constantinian celebratory 20th anniversary coins, reading VOT XXX – RFG – MVLT XL (Vota 30, ad multos annos 40, meaning ‘given you 30, and promise 10 more’).

Our 30th anniversary cake (thank you to Jon Sloper for this photograph)
Our 30th anniversary cake (thank you to Jon Sloper for this photograph)

Thank you to committee members Justine Bayley, Stephen Greep, Jörn Schuster, Sally Worrell, Jenny Hall, Angela Wardle for speaking and chairing, and thank you to speakers Alyson Tanner, Sophie Hawke, Eleanor Ghey, Anna Tyacke, Louise Tunnard, Bruce Eagles, Rachel Seager Smith, David Roberts, Richard Henry, Ruth Pelling, Michael Grant, Mike Bishop, Owen Humphreys, Miles Russell, and Tatiana Ivleva. Members can look forward to a full review of the conference in the next issue of Lucerna.

It was lovely to see so many archaeologists, finds specialists, Finds Liaison Officers and others at the conference, and Committee was especially pleased to celebrate our 30th anniversary with so many founder and new members. RFG Chair Justine Bayley spoke briefly about 30 years of Roman Finds Group: past, present and future; you can read her words here (coming soon).

As with our last few meetings, it was a sell-out with 85 attendees. Future meetings will secure larger rooms to ensure that we can accommodate everyone wishing to attend

Cutting cake. Thank you to Stephen Greep for this photograph
Cutting cake. Thank you to Stephen Greep for this photograph

RFG was also pleased to mark this occasion with many interested followers not present at the event; over the course of the seven days around the conference, our Twitter feed received nearly 15,000 ‘impressions’ (views). Committee member Nicola Hembrey tweeted and curated tweets sent by delegates from the event, and was heartened by the huge amount of engagement we attracted with our #rfg2017 hashtag (hashtag analysis is not reflected in the large number above), with many delegates carrying on their lively discussions online after the conference had finished.

All are welcome to our next RFG Conference in Canterbury on 23-24 March, based around the Richborough collections. Booking details will be advertised on Twitter and the website and in Lucerna to members in due course.

Raising a toast to many more years of RFG (thank you to Edwin Wood for this photograph)
Raising a toast to many more years of RFG (thank you to Edwin Wood for this photograph)