Or do the National Trust need to start looking after their members during the 'Rona

[MaconVillagesisgoodchardonnay]

I know we're in "unprecedented times" before anyone starts with that one.

I pay a family membership for NT and in a normal week I will use it at least twice a week with the children, either alone, with husband or to meet up with friends.

I haven't been since March when they opened it up to everyone, caused chaos and subsequently shut.

Since reopening and operating a booking system, the venues close to me you need to book almost a week in advance which is utterly bonkers. They haven't prioritised their members, or in fact communicated with us at all regarding this, in fact I've had no post from them since Jan renewal.

I've emailed them to see whether I can have either a partial refund or an extension on our membership - AIBU? I haven't had a response yet. I'd rather now have an annual pass to a private estate locally and know I can be guaranteed somewhere to go. When the schools do break up for summer the chances of booking a NT day out become even slimmer.

I'm a bit ratty after the baby kept me up all night but AIBU to be a bit fucked off at them?

*priding

For the record, I don't imagine maintaining a big gym with pools/racquet courts/catering/childcare/grounds/carpark while keeping everyone apart and swabbing down everything they touch, is straightforward at all!

If anyone is reading this from the National Trust, please give my DD her job back. You gave her a contract, put her on hold one week before she was supposed to start in March and earlier this week you sent her an email telling her that you have withdrawn her contract without even an apology or a hint that she will be employed again.

[quote JinglingHellsBells]@Todaythiscouldbe It's not exactly an extension. It's an extra 3 months WHEN and IF you renew the subscription.

So, for me, that means my new sub is due in August. I will pay another £80 and get 3 more months rather than my current sub being extended to December. And obviously between August this year and December (when a lot of the sites close down anyway) they will still have restrictions in place.

Also, there is usually an ongoing offer for new members which is 15 months for the price of 12, so it's hardly generous.[/quote]
So cancel in August, sign up again in June or July next year, get your 15 months as a 'new' member. Or, write off the approximately £20 that 3 months membership costs and continue to support them. I still want to be able to visit my favourite properties when all this is over, £20, even £100 seems a small price to pay for that.

For everyone who is shocked at my stance on membership - I pay £X amount per 12 months to access heritage sites. If I can't do that, why on earth would I pay?

Because national trust is about preserving these historic buildings, landscapes and wild countryside/coasts for future generations. They are heritage sites because they are an inheritance which should be safeguarded and passed on.

Because they call it a membership. If they want it viewed as a large donation then they name it appropriately. It's not unreasonable that someone who paid for something called a membership thinks they may now be a member of some sort of club or entity.

Yeah, it's not exactly a shock that people get the wrong impression.

For everyone who is shocked at my stance on membership - I pay £X amount per 12 months to access heritage sites. If I can't do that, why on earth would I pay?

Because otherwise they might not be there at all and then you won't be accessing anything.

I'm an ex-curator. I once worked in a site that was very very popular with the local community. It was free to go in for many years, until it started having problems. Expensive, structural problems.

So we put a price on the door. Not a big one, it was £3 for an adult. People were outraged. You'd have thought we'd demolished it. No-one came.

So we had to shut it, because it wasn't safe. We had no money to make it safe and people didn't want to contribute.

It's now permanently closed and much of it is falling slowly into a state of disrepair whilst a few buildings are being retained as archive storage.

If you don't want to pay for your history to be kept safe, be prepared to lose it.

@MaconVillagesisgoodchardonnay- and yet you have failed to take into account that they have made zero income from private rentals and tourism over the last six months.

It's very odd that people seem to accept that their lives and those of the businesses they work in have been affected immeasurably by CV (I'm guessing you haven't gone out to do many valuations of late) and yet expect other organisations to have continued with zero impact on anything they do or the services they provide.

I totally agree op. We both work full time and weekends are our only free time. We simply don't have time to be sitting round at a computer weeks in advance in the hope of getting a slot. My DP bought us NT membership for Christmas and we've used it once since then. the whole reason why we got it was so we could go at any time and be able to visit places which were a nice day out and safe for DC to run around.
I realise these are unprecedented circumstances and was happy to be patient for a few months but I think they need to start to thinking about their members now.

And the National Trust is sitting on billions of reserves so I'm not sure the argument that these things won't be there if we don't continue paying for a service we don't receive really stands up

Some don’t open until 9 for tickets as it is Seetickets not eventim. Waddesdon is one of these as I found out the other week

I suggest some of you might want to read the NT's latest annual review, specifically the section on inalienable property rights, to understand why substantial reserves are necessary: nt.global.ssl.fastly.net/documents/201819-annual-report.pdf

It's interesting how many people are so well equipped to run a national heritage charity. Perhaps you could offer them some pro bono advice.

what clymene said!

these are unprecedented and really bad times. Grow up.

I can sympathise with the rubbish booking systems but most staff are still furloughed and they're facing job cuts across the organisation - the Trust may appear to have a lot of money but most of this is wound up in assets or future project planning (such as major refurbs etc).

Our NTS membership is one of the best things we buy every year, and we're lucky enough to be in a position that we can afford to maintain it even though we can't use it at the moment. EH/Historic Scotland have many more properties which don't have the huge financial upkeep (lots of ruins!) and are able to open more of their properties because people can social distance outside round a ruin more easily than they can do inside a stately home.

I hate how NT/NTS has become so political - we just want to gawp at a stately home while being glad we don't have to live there, marvel at a beautiful garden and grab a slice of cake.

@Clymene

I suggest some of you might want to read the NT's latest annual review, specifically the section on inalienable property rights, to understand why substantial reserves are necessary: nt.global.ssl.fastly.net/documents/201819-annual-report.pdf

It's interesting how many people are so well equipped to run a national heritage charity. Perhaps you could offer them some pro bono advice.

Quite. They aren’t perfect, by any means, but I’ve compared them to local properties that are either still privately owned or were taken on by local councils etc. The first type are even more expensive to look round than an NT property (if you’re not a member) and understandably very restricted as to what you can view if the family still lives there. The second type are largely empty shells and there is little to show the glory that they used to be. I consider the NT to be be, on the whole, excellent value for money on a yearly subscription basis and worth a year of restricted use to support.

Shocking way to treat an employee as a pp has described above, however. Ime they have always done their best for employees and volunteers and it’s a shame that standard has fallen in this case.

@itakephotos Yes you can still visit if during you taking a 3 month payment holiday.

TBH I've not found it too bad. I've booked 5 visits to 3 different properties, and as long as I do it first thing on a Friday morning, I've got tickets no problem.

I agree a couple of the gardens I've visited look a bit uncared for, but they are still lovely places to go and I will continue with my membership.

You just need to stay up to midnight on Thursday to book a property for the following week. It’s not ideal but it’s fine.

And don’t forget, you’re supporting the NT to look after stately homes etc. Must cost a fortune.

I'm viewing it as a sunk cost for the year and any usage as a bonus.

I managed to get tickets for yesterday and did have a good afternoon for several hours. I was more selective about which site than I would go to compared to my usual habit randomly turning up when I feel like it.

@Clymene what are you on about? Do you think they kicked all of their hundreds of thousands of residential, farm and sporting tenants out of their homes and businesses because of covid?! Of course they continued to collect revenue. We're farmers - we haven't stopped working... 🙄

I'm a land agent in one of the regional Hubs for the NT and I confirm that they absolutely are not short of dollar. They behave very much like a public body by pissing money away being overly PC and managing their assets particularly badly. I wish to high hell I was back in corporate real estate and hadn't made the jump into the beardy weirdy land of NT estate management OP - I envy you that.

The membership is very much marketed as a rural marlin pass so no one should be surprised that it is used in such way (and also NT scones are generally dog shit bad).

Also @Clymene I can confirm that the NT revenue of private rentals remained solid through covid - not sure why you would think otherwise. And all of our "in hand" land is benefit to basic payment scheme and mostly in higher tier stewardship schemes so even more public dollar which they charge visitors for the pleasure of.

My own view is that if you’re a member you should have some priority otherwise what’s the point? We’re members and can’t get on our local property for love nor money. If it’s a donation call it such and we can make other choices.

We also have membership and have not been able to secure tickets, but non-members pay £10? a ticket so it's much needed income for the NT which I can't begrudge. We're members to support the NT, not get preferential treatment during a difficult time, is how I think about it. We generally get our money's worth otherwise and certainly will when restrictions are lifted.