Icon’s Groups are the lifeblood of the organisation – and the reason for its existence. Icon emerged from the fragmented landscape of smaller specialist conservation bodies in 2005, with the express purpose of unifying the sector and increasing clout with our shared voice.
In this, we need your help to keep the profile as high as possible. Our impact is stronger when we all work together, and on this basis we have built outlets with a strong following of interested people across the heritage sector and beyond.
Help us to keep the visibility high! When you share your successes, news stories, policy insights, and the energy and time you put into each, it gives us the raw material we need to promote conservation to the widest possible audience – pushing public awareness of what conservators do, and why it’s so important.
Contribute to Icon’s policy activities
Icon members possess a wealth of expertise, experience and information relating to heritage. Their first-hand experience of conservation and the profession gives them an edge in evaluating how policy developments can impact the sector.
Icon has consequently set up a forum through which to consult its members on key issues; our Policy Advisory Panel enables members to contribute to the development of Icon’s messages to decisionmakers and to influence policies affecting conservation.
Contribute an Impact Case Study
Contribute to Icon’s policy and advocacy efforts by demonstrating the impact of your events and activities! Impact case studies feature prominently on the Icon website and play a leading role in showcasing the positive outcomes of our activities. We welcome case studies from Groups and Networks. Each case study should be 500-600 words in total. The text should be lively and engaging and the aim is to demonstrate impact, not just report what happened. Ideally, the stories should feature people rather than being overly abstract. The audience will be members, the public and potential funders. You might find it helpful to use this structure:
- What was the goal we set out to achieve?
- What did we do?
- What was the outcome?
- What did we learn?
- What will we do next?
And remember to attach a selection of images in jpeg format, including one that is suitable as a page banner (1440x330 pixels).
Contribute to Icon News
Icon News covers all aspects of the conservation and restoration of cultural heritage across the UK. Each issue contains news, features, updates from Groups and Networks, practical advice and listings of upcoming events, awards and scholarships.
To contribute news or a feature to Icon News, email editor Lynette Gill to discuss your ideas.
What can be submitted?
- Articles on recent initiatives, special treatments or interesting projects
- Group and Network updates
- Reviews of recent conferences and other events
- Book reviews
Contribute content for the website
The website is an ever-evolving resource with content tailored to meet our members’ needs and also to engage public interest. We are keen to promote all relevant content, givin "shout outs" to our members’ achievements and generally advocating for and extending the influence of the profession. If you've got something worth talking about, we want to hear it!
Email us with your ideas.
Support our social media activities
We welcome social media support from Groups and Networks and have set up a Social Media Officers' forum to share good practice and ideas. Information about setting up and running Group or Network social media accounts can be found in Icon's Social Media Policy and Social Media Guidelines.
Icon's communications team monitors Group and Network social media output and will retweet and engage with you where we can - though we can't always stay on top of all of the stories! To help us spot your posts and share them with a wider audience via our main account @Conservators_uk make sure that you mention us. You can always flag up key tweets using the DM function too.
If you use social media in a personal capacity, trustee James Murphy offers some great tips about how you can support Icon through your personal activity.
And if you have ideas for social media campaigns or initiatives liaise with our Communications Officer.