On a chilly November afternoon in York, archaeologists of many kinds gathered at the University of York's Department of Archaeology for a half-day conference titled: Archaeology and the material past in the public realm organised by the Institute for the Public Understanding of the Past (IPUP). The event was co-sponsored by York Archaeological Trust.

The day's programme included a keynote from history broadcaster Michael Wood and talks from archaeologists with a diverse experience of community and public engagement work.

I (Pat Hadley) arrived with Lorna Richardson, Don Henson and Ruth Whyte. All of us on twitter with various levels of engagement (read addiction). As Lorna and I were familiar with how poor the twitter use at archaeology conferences tends to be we had little optimism that live tweeting would be particularly appreciated.

I immediately messed up my twitter etiquette by forgetting the hashtag....

But, then a pleasant surprise! Hugh Corley was also in the audience and began to help the cause:

Hugh also tweets for the official English Heritage account, and massively amplified our reach by using this account too

And apparently we were being heeded.

The room filled up fast:

The afternoon was opened by Julian Richards head of the archaeology department at York and his remarks were swiftly followed by Helen Weinstein, Director of IPUP.

Michael Wood's keynote piece got underway very quickly with a behind-the-scenes look at the Story of England series filmed in Kibworth, Leicestershire. The talk was very engaging and positive and Michael's enthusiasm and that of the participants shone through.

There were some concerns from the audience that despite it's great successes a more balanced view of the project might be needed:

Many picked up on the techniques and issues the project had dealt with: