National Trust room guides - AIBU

[lucydogz]

Just once, I'd like to look round a National Trust property without someone telling me about it. You can avoid eye contact in properties with larger rooms, but I've just been to a small property , so just me in a series of tiny rooms with a very nice lady/man sitting in the corner, just waiting to tell me about it. I just don't need it and want to make my own mind about it.

Oh specialsubject - 'managing' volunteers is something else. Very very difficult.

Who's good idea upthread was the sticker thing? You need a gold star sticker yourself!

Meeeeee!!!

And thank you

And that is even more so when it comes to disability/diversity training. The experience recounted by Zebra above is horrendous. I don't see how anyone could defend that on the basis that "they can't win".

I am not sure anyone actually tried to. I made the comment about 'they can't win' but it was not in reference to disability or diversity. I think you made that leap yourself.

Yay!!! An mn gold star!!

Can you tell us which NT properties have guides that do this?

Nostell Priory for one

I've been there loads of times and have never been approached by any of the staff except for the time ds made as though he was going to sit on the bed

Thing is, for some of us, it's not snobbery. It's knowledge.

It's snobbery when you spend time and energy going onto a forum to slag off volunteers for not having the same level of knowledge of a subject as you.

Very different from correcting someone at the time.

Lucky you then dailyshite Every single room I went in at Nostell I was accosted by a guide. I couldn't get away from one of them, even though I was trying and someone else was trying to ask them something. My kids were giving me daggers.

It's actually happened twice there, although the second time wasn't as bad as I was rushing myself through in case someone tried speaking to me.

Don't get me wrong, as an opinionated know-it-all myself, I can understand how irritating it must be to have to stand there listening to visitors musing amongst themselves, with their rhetorical questions and basic knowledge. The urge to butt in and put them right must be overwhelming.

However, I shall reiterate my point from up the thread-if I want their help, I'll ask for it, thank you :). I don't want to be homed in because I've looking at a piece of furniture for more than five minutes.

The sticker idea is excellent.

do you mean Killerton? oops yes, Killerton. Gorgeous grounds - I imagine a Parkrun there would be lovely. And flat compared to where I live!

Very different from correcting someone at the time.

Well, if a docent says something inaccurate, I do tactfully try to correct them. But they plough on. As the US one did with her "But I know that Carlisle is in Scotland."

That's the point I was making weyhay. Correct them at the time, don't go round slagging them off for their intellectual inferiority on a website.

Hello. My name is Tamzin and I'm a National Trust Volunteer (hangs head in shame).

Loads of unfair generalisations about us on this thread.
Every property is different. Every volunteer is different too.
At my property volunteers have to go through a challenging recruitment process, and are not let loose on the public until they have completed an induction period. Training is ongoing. We have monthly workshops and a compulsory pre -season training day each year.

I work as a room steward and I am also involved in conservation work behind the scenes. In addition I carry out historical research for our archives group.

Every visitor who walks into a room where I'm on duty gets a big smile and a warm hello from me. I then point out our information booklets to them, tell them that they're welcome to sit on the comfy sofas, and say that they can give me a shout if they have any questions. I then leave them alone if that's what they want.

The vast majority of visitors are very keen to interact, but I can recognise those that aren't from a mile off. Probably something to do with the way that they grunt in response to my smiley greeting, and look down their noses at me. I always give people like that a very wide berth.

The property is over 500 years old and I know every single detail of its turbulent history, which I'm happy to share with anyone who asks. I know all about the architectural history, and also about the people who have lived there. Often when I'm responding to one person's question I look up to see that a whole group has gathered round to listen, which is lovely.

A very famous literary person once lived in our property and we get academic visitors from all over the world. Some of these (and they're always British) make it abundantly clear that they don't want to talk to the likes of me, so I don't bother to talk to them either. That is their loss, not mine, as I've seen diaries, letters, notes and inscriptions inside books owned by said literary person that they wouldn't even know were in existence.

I've been going to NT for many years - most have laminated info cards and I've never felt intimidated or uncomfortable due to a volunteers who are giving their time for free to help visitors ... so I think you are being unreasonable.

Fair play to the volunteers. They are usually more enthusiastic than. most paid employees.
I think people have become too used to shoddy, couldn't give a shit service, and when someone actually does things properly (which is what national trust service people do) it really throws them.

Well done all you National Trust Vunteers. You do a great job.

Tamzin you are a shining jewel among some otherwise potentially quite dull stones and I'll stop my crap metaphor there by that I mean, you sound terrific! But as you can see from the thread, as NT visitors a lot of pp have had less than stellar experiences with guides who are either intrusive or far less well-informed than you are.

If you tell us which building, we could do a MN meet - of all the geeks and "overinvolved academics" We could be your fan club!

Yes Tamzin tell us which one so we can come and see you!!

Thank you Wey and Ethelfleda. It's not just me. There are volunteers at my place who are far more knowledgeable and jewel like than I am. I don't want to out myself but think of a "castle" in the South East with a very famous garden.

My problem is that there is often no alternative interpretation. You don't get printed room cards or tickets telling you, for example, the painter and title of a painting, the maker of a chair and its date etc.

True! And I find when I want to know about something, it's never in the bloody folder and the guide doesn't know either.

If anyone knows who designed the coffee set in the dining room at Standen, I'd love to know. I get £5 off DP if it turns out to be Christopher Dresser.

Otoh, the garden people don't talk to you unless you approach them, and are very pleasant and knowledgeable if you do. I've had some lovely chats with NT gardeners.

I also had a nice chat with an elderly man at Great Dixter the first time I went. It was months later I saw his picture in a newspaper and realised it was Christopher Lloyd himself.

Thank you for all you do tamzin. I honestly appreciate all the work that volunteers do and always make eye contact and smile. I often talk to them and enjoy listening to them. But - Every visitor who walks into a room where I'm on duty gets a big smile and a warm hello from me. I then point out our information booklets to them, tell them that they're welcome to sit on the comfy sofas, and say that they can give me a shout if they have any questions. I then leave them alone if that's what they want.. don't you think that's Ott? How do you think it feels for visitors to receive that attention in every room they enter?
The Trust couldn't function without hundreds of brilliant people like you who do an excellent job, but I think their training needs a tweak.

I feel bad saying it, but I agree with you lucy Less is more.

Though I feel I should also counter with the fact that there are some fantastic guides out there, who far outweigh the not so good ones. I appreciate the fact that these places probably couldn't run without volunteers giving up their precious time to do this job.

..and I'm not bothered about how much they know, I'm just grateful they are there so that I can enjoy the room.
But I just want an unmediated experience, as far as possible. And I don't need the guide to be in costume, it's distracting and unnecessary.

Oooh tamzin I know where you are. Fabulous place. I used to live very close and went numerous times - I would have loved it if you'd talked to me about the papers etc that you've seen.

I can't say I have ever felt pestered by room guides at any NT property; maybe I have been "lucky". I've always found volunteers to be very pleasant and polite and quiet!!

It's easy to avoid the child-centred displays if that's not what you want, but equally, not everyone is a historian or intellectual and (hush my mouth) there may be all manner of visitors who quite enjoy the range of ways to engage with the property.

In summary - if you don't like it, don't go!

There are a couple of local ones that are great - you get a hello from the person on duty and that's it unless you ask, and that is great as I love time to look and soak up the atmosphere of the place. I went in one new one recently though where the people on duty in a small house and museum were clearly bored out of their minds on a very quiet day plus I think the usual culture of that particular place, and there was no escaping a non stop lecture and questions and very vigorous engagement. You couldn't look at anything in the room they were so demanding of your attention, they made it very difficult to escape a room because they weren't done telling you things, and after four such rooms we skipped seeing the rest and left as while we'd loved to have seen the house we couldn't stand running the gauntlet of more very intense staff.

Agree it's who is on duty and how that place tends to work. I can still fondly remember a lady in tweeds who directed us the specific order in which to see the things on the leaflet in a cathedral and pursued us to tell us off when we went to a different one first. No guided tour or directed route in the place at all! The volunteers at St Albans cathedral though are utterly lovely, and balance all kinds of help and welcome without being at all intrusive.

fuzzy custard - 'If you don't like it don't go'.
I've been a member for years, and the Trust, in it's wisdom, has decided to make big changes to the presentation of houses, working towards Disney Heritage. You are basically echoing it's message on this which is 'suck it up'. Which I probably will do, to be honest.

My only complaint about these places is that the volunteers are very clued up about the history and architecture of the building butdon't always know very little about the plants in the gardens.
We were in a NT country house and gardens in Cornwal recently and they had the most gorgeous creeper type plant in the inside courtyard bit, that had obviously been there years and years because it's main trunk was thicker than a person's body. It was similar to wisteria but wasnt'.
I asked 3 NT volunteers if they could give me the name of the plant and nobody seemed to know. .
A gardener was busy weeding, so I went to ask her and she turned her back on me and put her headphones in. So no luck there.

The gardens are such a huge feature of most NT places that I think the volunteers could do with extra training in that area. There must be lots of people like me who are just as (if not more so) interested in the outside spaces as inside the building.