The National Trust - is it losing ours?

MawBe

trisher

I wonder Mawbe if you would be so upset if volunteers had been asked to dress in 1940's outfits or uniforms to commemorate the end of WW2? As long as no one is forcing anyone to do this (and I think that is true for any sort of dress-up) I can't see why it should be so controversial.

Actually I would Trisher - I also resent the “Lucy Worsley School of History” which I see as patronising and dumbing down for intelligent adults.
School parties, maybe (primary) might like to see the dressing up, but I would walk briskly in the opposite direction.

Well said, Maw. Entirely agree.

Dinahmo

Perhaps they should get bigger bins. It does seem rather silly on their part. If people can't find a bin then they will just throw the bag and its contents away.

We discovered when clearing some gardens for a new 'visitor attraction' which had been well used by the local dog walkers for a number of years, that the organic matter in the bags decomposes and leaves the plastic to hang around for heaven knows how many years. It would be more environmentally sound to just chuck the dog poo into the undergrowth (carry a little scoop for that purpose) and cut out the plastic bags...

And I can see the NT being delighted when their bushes start producing new 'fruit'...

(Though I realise that this is not an entirely practical solution in some places)

Perhaps they should get bigger bins. It does seem rather silly on their part. If people can't find a bin then they will just throw the bag and its contents away.

Now the National Trust is removing all dog poo bins to force people to take the waste home with them. Apparently the bins can't accommodate all the poo and need emptying more often.
Brain dead in my opinion.

BBC spotlight on tuesday night has an item about Bonds meadow near Bovey Tracey being sold by the NT.
BBC local news is available on the i-player for TWENTY FOURS ONLY if you want to have a look.

theworriedwell

For the last time Pride is not just about gay people it is LGBTQ+ Maybe you can't see the point of Pride or NT trying to get their staff/volunteers to be more open minded about minorities but some of us can.

People on here have been very upset about glitter, it is you Doodledog who is dismissing their concerns. I don't share them but I acknowledge they have them.

I can say from experience that the volunteers at NT properties are (for the most part) very open minded. We realise that our visitors come from all walks of life with a myriad of different views. They come to see the property and the scenery and the history not to discuss politics or religion or any 'ism' so most of us prefer to keep as neutral as possible. Some of us wish to wear the rainbow lanyard. There's been no pressure on us either way.. And certainly no pressure to wear face paint or sparkles. At least not at 'my' house.

theworriedwell

For the last time Pride is not just about gay people it is LGBTQ+ Maybe you can't see the point of Pride or NT trying to get their staff/volunteers to be more open minded about minorities but some of us can.

People on here have been very upset about glitter, it is you Doodledog who is dismissing their concerns. I don't share them but I acknowledge they have them.

You are doing it again.

Where have I said or implied that I do not see the point of Pride? Or that it is not about LGBTQ+? Please show me where I have said either of those things?

I'm not sure that you have understood my post. I am not saying that people have not objected to glitter being used to 'represent' or otherwise signify Pride. I have objected to this myself, as I feel that it is a lazy stereotype and that it is not the business of the NT.

My point is that your dismissing this (the stereotyping and the co-opting of a festival that is unconnected to the NT) as 'worrying about glitter', particularly when you set it against what you describe as your own 'principled stand' is patronising.

Katie59
Diversity training is one thing.

Pandering to wokeness is just virtue signalling and has no value at all and adds nothing to how all their visitors are treated with politeness and courtesy.

What the NT was/is doing, has nothing to do with diversity training. They were dressing them up to caracature various minority groups in the population.

There is considerable evidence that diversity training is not effective.

It sound like the NT is doing no more than most companies do which is Diversity Training, at work a group of us are doing half a day next week, so that we treat all customers correctly.

For the NT that would include volunteers too because they are representing NT wether they are paid or not.

M0nica ?Completely agree with you. The NT is becoming so fixated on which hobby horse it can pin it's virtue signalling credentials on next, that it's lost sight of what it is actually there for; i.e. preserving properties of historical interest for future generations.

Well said MOnica.

worriedwell NT trying to get their staff/volunteers to be more open minded about minorities but some of us can.

How do you know that the staff and volunteers are not already openminded about minorities?

I think what irritates people about this issue more than anything is the way the NT and others are automatically assuming that anyone who volunteers for them because of their age or other social demographic is ignorant and prejudiced.

It is patronising and offensive. The NT has no monopoly on virtue.

I'd like to hear Gandalf's views on this.

Read this and either weep or howl with laughter.
When I saw this discussed on TV I thought it must be a joke, but it’s not.
www.tolkiensociety.org/2021/06/seminar-speakers-announced-tolkien-and-diversity/

For the last time Pride is not just about gay people it is LGBTQ+ Maybe you can't see the point of Pride or NT trying to get their staff/volunteers to be more open minded about minorities but some of us can.

People on here have been very upset about glitter, it is you Doodledog who is dismissing their concerns. I don't share them but I acknowledge they have them.

Too close to calling me stupid for sticking to my principles, which I accept are mine and other people have different ones, like worrying about glitter.

Who is 'worrying about glitter'?

There are so many posts (and not just on this thread) that take one comment and extrapolate wildly from it to make an entirely different point, which is then attributed to the original poster.

Saying that 'encouraging' staff and volunteers to daub their face in glitter as a dubious gesture of support to gay people is misguided is not 'worrying about glitter'.

By suggesting that it is you are ridiculing the people who feel that it is misguided, and belittling their concerns without addressing them directly. You also make the point that your posts come from a point of principle, which takes the moral high ground before sweeping the principles of others away by dismissing them as worries about trivialities.

Yes some amazing women there, I particularly liked that they included the Sheffield women of steel I'd love to hear the story of Rachel Campbell, childminder.

I wonder who people would like to add?

In 2018 the theme of Heritage Open days was Extraordinary Women. Their Wall of Women is still on line www.heritageopendays.org.uk/about/history/extraordinary-women/wall-of-women
And yes Cartimandua is there.

Actually the strong women theme would be good wouldn't it. So many women forgotten, not just the leaders although they are but the ordinary women who coped with childbirth, losing children when there was no access to effective medicines and certainly no immunisations.

I was talking to some young women at work and saying when I had my first baby we didn't have central heating, double glazing, a colour TV, a washing machine, a fridge (my mum bought me one soon after) and certainly not decent disposable nappies. It was hard work, they were horrified and it was only the 1970s but then I thought of a woman I worked with who gave birth under the kitchen table in an air raid with only her mother and a neighbour in attendance while her husband was fighting in France so my hardships didn't seem great. That was nearly 80 years ago and then think what was it like a hundred years before that and a hundred years before that. Talk about standing on the shoulders of giants, those women in history were amazing. We shouldn't forget them the powerful ones and the "ordinary" ones. I guess we wouldn't survive long if dropped into their shoes.

And yes school trips are a sore subject.

Don't mention school trips!
Yes, DD and her friend got lost because the teacher in charge just let them all wander off on their own to explore a capital city. (Year 8 or 9)

Certainly not theworriedwell!
The Brigantes were a very important tribe.

Everyone's heard of Boudicca (Boadicea) but not so many have heard of Cartimandua.
In fact, the NT are missing a trick there, in educating us all about powerful women leaders of the past.
Mind you, she did side with the Roman invaders, so perhaps not such a good role model.

5th year would be year 11 now.

Maggiemaybe

I once spent a couple of hours sheltering behind a low stone wall on Roseberry Topping when a particularly dippy teacher got our school rambling club lost up there in fog. I've also been lost in St Petersburg, coincidentally. And once before when it was Leningrad. DH and I have form.

I don't recall woad painted warriors on RT, but then again, we wouldn't have been able to make them out in those conditions.

Oh dear, I have a daughter who can get lost anywhere. She got lost on a foreign school trip once. It was the last time they took her anywhere, can't say I blame them it must be a nightmare as a teacher to be in a foreign country with a missing child. Fortunately I didn't know until afterwards.

The infamous incident on a school trip I went on was one of the 5th years being missing one morning and subsequently found in the waiters bed - with the waiter. Caused quite a scandal and she had a bit of a tough time from then on, the thing I remember most is they confiscated her make up. I couldn't quite figure that one out.

Callistemon

I've just realised it's not a property, it's a hill.

Where woad painted warriors fought off the foe.
Another dressing up idea for the National Trust?

Well we don't want to remember that nonsense, wearing face paint. They need writing out of history pronto.