What is RAM
WHAT IS RAM AND WHY JOIN?
RAM is THE professional organization for life models and tutors /artists in the UK. Thanks to our unique auditioning and referencing system, we consistently produce models who are number one in terms of competence, conduct and reliability.
Models will find work and support through RAM membership. This is through employers contacting them via the website, our Joblink page and our Paywatch list of hundreds of employers of artists' models. Nearly 2000 employers of life models have access to the contact details of RAM members on this site. Members are protected as we insist on artists providing a checkable address when they join.Models can get work through our website, both by advertising themselves in 'RAM Members Online' and by answering the ads on the site.
Beginners are supported and encouraged. Our auditioning system gives them
experience in a safe and supportive environment.
We function as an unofficial union.
We publish the RAM Guidelines on pay, working conditions and conduct, which are
widely referred to.
Tutors will get excellent models. All full members of RAM in London (and some outside London) have auditioned for membership.All full members of RAM outside London have either auditioned or provided two good references from tutors.
We had our origins in the struggle of the 1980s, when we had to drag the job of life modelling out of the depths it had sunk into. We wanted to give it back some of the status it used to have. Thanks largely to our efforts, nobody can deny that the job gets a rather better press these days, or that the people doing it take it more seriously and are more professional about it - especially if they are members of RAM. Nothing is perfect, but on the whole RAM models are a class act, in terms of competence, conduct and reliability. In fact, those have been our three watchwords from the start.
AIMS OF RAM
The primary aim of RAM is to improve the status of the artists' model. We have always recognised that there are three essential requirements for this. First, the quality of service offered by models, in terms of competence, conduct and reliability has to be raised and maintained at a consistently high level. Secondly, we have to find ways of countering as much as possible the fragmentary nature of employment caused by the contemporary approach to the administration of education in the UK. Thirdly we have to strive to educate the public (and often the employers of models) regarding the job that models do.
We believe that in pursuance of these objects it is important to bring all good and reliable models in the UK into RAM and that all reasonable employers of models should be RAM licence-holders. We also believe that the RAM Guidelines, which have been revised annually since 1996, should be more widely read and adopted by models and employers.
WHAT HAVE WE ACHIEVED?
Although unregistered models are reluctant to admit it, the average fees for modelling (in London at least) increased by some 30% above the rate of inflation between 1996 and 2004. No trade union achieved an average increase on this scale during the same period. Models in many areas can now expect to earn more than twice the Minimum Wage instead of just above it.
RAM registered models are generally acknowledged to have a much better record of competence, conduct and reliability than those who will not join us or who have been rejected for membership. Models and tutors alike can feel that they have an avenue of complaint against unacceptable treatment or unprofessional behaviour.
The RAM Guidelines, which can be printed from our website, form the only comprehensive consultative document available to employers and models on such things as pay, conduct and working conditions. The website itself is an important source of information and, of course, work.
Any problems you are likely to encounter are dealt with in the RAM Consultative Guidelines. General questions about life modelling are covered in Advice for Models.
