The club fully supports the NCMD, who provide an umbrella for the hobby of responsible metal detecting. They encourage and promote the hobby, providing among other things:

• Liaison with government and archaeology community over legislation such as the Treasure Act.
• Third-party liability insurance for individual members
• A Code of Conduct for members to follow
• Financial support for archaeological investigations following significant detecting finds

This scheme was established by the government in 1999 to record the small metallic objects found by hobbyists such as ourselves and other members of the public. It has been hugely successful in unforeseen ways; the huge quantity of finds coupled with location data has literally allowed archaeologists to re-write history.   Some individual finds can do this (eg a Saxon penny found by MWS), but most powerfully, meta-analysis of the data set has led to academic papers and new findings and insights into events of the past. 

MWS encourages members to record their finds and actively identifies important items for recording that might not be recognised by the finders. We have developed excellent relationships with the Surrey and Hampshire FLOs (Finds Liaison Officers) and even have a flag in the database implemented to tag our groups’ finds.