Leaving The National Trust

I have said before. If you’re not happy (or happy) with your visit do fill in the comments cards. The more people who remark on things like the membership hard sell or volunteer attitudes the better. It does have an effect. There are now poo bins in our park car parks after years of being expected to take them home! Praise for the good bits helps too!

Daring to visit.? Purpledaffodil! I know what you mean.
The grounds are often open all year so that is good.
When my DC were small I'd love to take them to our nearest N'T property where we would take a picnic and make ourselves at home in the far reaches of the garden.
I'm sure it encouraged their love of nature and beautiful gardens through all the seasons.

I’ve had a mixed experience with winter opening. On the one hand it is good to be able to at least plan a day out in the winter when weather is generally poor. However we did just this on a recent weekend away and our guide was vociferously negative about winter opening. She claimed it would lead to more damage to properties due to visitors breathing and the need to heat the properties. This was not a fragile Tudor building, but a Victorian home. We left feeling as if we should have apologised for daring to visit! ?

Put off by this ??‍♀️

I don’t belong to NT, but have considered it as I love visiting historic houses. I have been put off by the lack of public transport to the properties as I don’t have a car. I wonder how many other people are out of my this ?

Nice

Our local NT pile always closed in winter due to low visitor numbers and the need for time to do maintenance work and thorough cleaning. But this year they’re trying 363 day opening. Not all the rooms can be open, but being able to see how the conservation work and specialist cleaning takes place is proving popular. Hopefully it’ll catch on and visitor numbers will increase as it becomes more known. The restaurant, gardens and shops are open all year.

I've been reading your comments, a bit after the event, but just wanted to add my tuppence worth.
I am a member of the Scottish NT which gets us into English places too but the opening times of properties are really poor.
Some don't open in the winter and that's the very time you need to be entertained and educated.
I recently tried to take my DD and family out to lunch at a Scottish castle and the cafe was closed.

The village of Culross is NT but be warned, it doesn't open until Easter. I tried to take my visiting rellies there but alas we had to stand and watch the sea in the rain
You may suggest I should check in advance and that would be sensible but sometimes we want to be spontaneous. Often there is no mobile reception in Scotland.

My opinion of NT has been rather clouded after a job application. I was shortlisted for an interview and asked to visit their head office. So after arranging the time off, childcare for my little one and taking the 200 mile trip plus hotel expenses, I turned up to be met by 2 hipster types who clearly had little if no interviewing experience. I sat down to be told by the main interviewer that she hadn't actually read my CV as hadn't been able to open it on the online application but liked my cover letter. I then proceeded to have the most excrutiating 45 minutes of my life being asked for basic information that was on my CV and inane unfathomable questions. Needless to say I didn't get the job and couldn't get out quick enough. On the plus side at least I spent some quality time with my sister who came along for the ride and we got some shopping done in the outlet centre! I think there are some real issues there...

Yes, you do have to request the discount and it’s not widely advertised. Usually with all these organisations (NT, EH etc) you need to visit four times to break even or gain by being a member.

Eazybee, if you get bad service again, do fill in a Comments Card. Although you may not get an individual reply they do have an effect. Also a comment on Facebook or Trip Advisor will strike home. This method might also get an answer as to why the barrier has to be locked at all. Has there been trouble with travellers occupying it? The NT sites in our neck of the woods are open 24/7.

As to the staff member stopping people joining the ice cream queue, are you sure they weren’t volunteers? These people give their time willing but do have families to get back to.

I emailed them at the end of last year to request the discounted rate from January when our subs were due. It seemed we had been members way over the qualifying period of 5 years, so you definitely have to request the loyalty rate, they don't automatically offer it. I think we need to use our NT membership more often to justify the outlay.

I have joined and left the National Trust, twice, when it started to use its membership for political reasons. I was treated to the hard sell at the House where they later tried to force staff to wear rainbow badges, and also in the car park when I commented on how expensive the parking was. Two local NT cafes I visited recently offered poor food, slow service and dirty tables, but the worst was at a beach cafe on a hot bank holiday when they stopped serving ice creams at 5 oclock precisely, with a staff member who could have served on the counter stood in the queue from 4.30 to prevent anyone else joining. They also control access to this beach and prevent people accessing it by locking the barrier at 7pm; no other access possible: no buses and road painted with double yellow lines all the way.

At Christmas I bought, online, some tea towels from the NT and also a small diary, as I like month-to-view ones and they are not that common. They sent the tea towels and five diaries. While I accept that that is a mistake which can happen in the best-regulated circles, I am still waiting, nearly 3 months later, for an response to my email telling them about the mistake. Also for an acknowledgement that I sent back the four extra diaries at my own expense. Not impressed!

The cafes at NT properties usually give slow service and are really expensive. I always take a flask and a picnic when I go to a NT property. When in Italy I visit RAI properties (NT equivalent) and they always have lovely restaurants with waiters and fantastic food. A lunch there is a real treat.

As an Australian NT member we get reciprocal free entry to English NT properties. During visits to the UK over the last 25 years I have visited more than 35 NT properties across the UK and have always found staff and volunteers very welcoming and informative. However I would certainly find questions in feedback comments about sexual preferences not only intrusive but quite simply irrelevant.

The only coment I would make is that over the time I have been visiting UK NT properties the standard of catering has declined enormously. We used to look forward to a lovely lunch or afternoon tea with local menus and produce but not so now where catering is obviously being contracted out to large catering groups. Same pretty average food at every property.

Excellent maryeliza, wish my experiences with the NT had been so efficient. Sadly, it wasn't.

I buy membership for my dd every year. They send the cards to me with the invoice for the amount as it is done under the gift scheme. They also send me a gift card to put the membership cards in to give or send to her. I always receive the cards in plenty of time to hand them over to her.

Apart from all the reasons already given on here, I will not be renewing my membership next time either. My membership has been bought for me as a gift from a family member. It should be a simple, straightforward process, I would have thought i.e. Ms A applies for and pays for membership for Ms B. NT then send the membership card etc to Ms B. Simple? Every year they have managed to send the membership card and handbook to the family member, not to me. I then spend several weeks trying to get it sorted out and can only have 2 week temporary membership passes whilst they do so. They blamed it all on "problems with their new computer system" that cost thousands of ££££. Nice to know the membership money was well spent!

looks as if the NT Scotland will lose member too ,with the appointment of Neil Oliver ,controversial as Mr Oliver has spun Scottish history in a way thats simply not true..he said for instance that the Highland clearances were voluntary emigration.....that is not the case and while he may be personable some members would like a spokesman who is also accurate with our history.

I'm very sad about it but have come to the conclusion that I agree with Melvyn Bragg that the National Trust is a bullying and arrogant charity, and not the force for good I had always thought it was.

In addition to all the comments on this thread about how it treats volunteers and visitors to its properties, there is this awful incident concerning a farm the NT bought in the Lake District, using its financial muscle to outbid the local community www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/03/national-trust-lake-district-borrowdale-sheep-farm-sale-fight.

Also, I have recently retired from a company which provides services to many organisations, and one of its contracts is with the National Trust. I won't say what services my ex-employer provides to the Trust because that would identify them and break confidentiality, but I know my ex-employer to be ethical, and deliver value for money. So it was a surprise that the contract with the Trust rapidly developed into a so-called 'troubled' contract, with one unreasonable demand after another, the Trust exploiting any loophole they could find in the contract, and nobody in the office wanting to work with them because they were horrid to boot. My employer is just hanging on till the end of the contract and then certainly will not be looking to renew it.

It's all a far cry from the warm supportive view I had of this Charity a few years ago. :-((

It’s on the website - where else could it be advertised? I suppose they could put an item in the magazine.

If the member has not reached 60 but their partner has & is on the Joint Membership swop the main member around' DH & I did when he retired, I rang, yes you do have to ring & no it's not advertised, I had always been main member but we changed this to DH being main member. I was only 50 but got Pensioner rate as well - bargain.

I missed a year when I moved but have now renewed & still qualify for Pensioner rate or as my card states "Member (Senior)"

I couldn't agree more. Whatever the situation, a hard sell is very off-putting, isn't it?
When I was in my twenties Life Membership was advertised for the princely sum of £35. Sadly, I was only earning a small amount and I couldn't afford it. Plus, at that age you spend your hard earned cash on different things. I sometimes wonder, though, if I had been able to take advantage of it I'd be quids in now wouldn't I?

I object to the fact that when you visit any NT property as a non-member, they automatically charge extra for admission as the 'administration fee for gift aiding'. I don't understand why they are allowed to charge EXTRA when they are getting money back from the government as gift-aid, and I object to not being asked first. They assume that you are a) a tax payer, and b) that you want to gift aid. I am now well prepared when I visit (not very often!) and say I want to pay the advertised entry fee, not the gift-aid fee.