TAS Field School Registration Increase
Ron Ralph, TAS Field School Committee
With regret, the TAS Board of Directors has recognized that field school registration must be increased for calendar year 2016. Registration for full time adults was $120 in 2015 but will increase to $140 this year. Registration for youth, non-participants and short time attendees will not increase. The $20 increase was deemed necessary to offset anticipated costs of curation for artifacts, notes, maps, photographs and other items at an accredited repository. TAS Field School registration has not increased since 2009 when it went from $100 to $120.
In past years, the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory and other Texas repositories have been able to curate field school assemblages at no cost to the Society. Unfortunately, with rising costs this is no longer the case. Future collections generated by the TAS Field Schools may require a fee to house such collections. For example, the Mission San Saba field school generated almost 100 boxes of materials that must be curated as per the terms of the Antiquities Permit. Many future field schools and all field schools conducted under permit will require curation in an accredited repository. This curation fee may be negotiated resulting in a better price for us than the one set for CRM companies, but it will be costly none the less.
The amount collected during field school will be put into a special account the Society will draw on to house future collections.The amount raised in any one year will not be sufficient to curate a field school. Fortunately, not all field schools will require housing, so over several years, the accrued amount should offset those years when curation is required. Unfortunately, as curation costs increase in the future, registration costs will need to keep apace.
To learn more about the history behind our archeological society contact Publicity/Outreach: publicoutreach@txhas.org.