Supporting the National Trust

The Purbeck Association of The National Trust (PANT) was founded in 1987 and is a voluntary association
of people who support the work of the National Trust.

Membership costs £5 per year for individuals, or £7.50 for two people at one address.

Please note however that joining us does not confer
any of the benefits of being a member of the Trust itself.

What we are

Centres and Associations exist to promote the work of the National Trust and make membership more enjoyable by allowing people who support the National Trust's aims and ideals to share their interest with like-minded people in their area.

PANT is one of many groups all around the country. Groups are run by members, for members. Visit our Links page to find other local groups.

Centres and Associations donate over £0.5m to the Trust annually, and since the first association was founded in Manchester in 1948, nearly £25 million has been raised.

Who we are

Anyone who wants to support the work of the Trust in this area is welcome to join. Our 350+ members live mainly in and around Swanage and Wareham; click here for more details. Our objectives are to promote the work of the National Trust in Purbeck and, through social activities, make membership more enjoyable.

We are independent of the National Trust but governed by a constitution common to all its Centres and Associations. Our affairs are conducted by a committee elected at our annual general meeting held each April. If you're deeply interested you can click here to see our constitution - it's important, but it's not exactly a thrilling read.

If you want to know who the committee members are, click the button

What we do

Talks

There are talks by visiting speakers monthly from September to March. The venue generally alternates between Wareham and Swanage - click here or follow the link above for details of talks.

Outings

We arrange coach outings to places of interest throughout the year. We often arranged a special Christmas outing in December including an opportunity for Christmas shopping - click here or follow the link above for details of outings.

Social Events

We try to hold some sort of social event most months - click here or follow the link above for details. We used to have a Christmas lunch in December, but we found that lots our members went to similar lunches with other groups, so in 2014 we had a 'Not Christmas Lunch' in January, which proved very popular. We arrange an occasional coffee morning or afternoon tea so that new members can meet the Committee. We know that some members can't attend the afternoon talks or midweek outings, so we have some evening events such as beetle drives, barbecues and evening meals.

Breaks

During the year we try to arrange an overnight stay, a two-night break and a five-night holiday. These enable members to get to places that we can't visit on a one-day outing. Click here to see details.

Data Protection if you join

This sets out PANT’s position on the use of members’ data.

The current data protection regulations (GDPR) came into force in May 2018.

Details relating to membership (name, address, telephone number, email address, NT membership number (if appropriate) are stored electronically but are deleted/destroyed when no longer needed. The computer on which the data is held is regularly maintained so that it has the latest software and security software installed; the database is password protected and regularly backed up to another location to protect the data against loss or unauthorised disclosure.

The information is used solely for purposes associated with running the Association, namely

• administration of the membership renewal process each year,

• distribution of the Newsletter,

• contacting members who have booked for events organised by the Association' and

• regularly informing members of the activities of the Association. This is done via email for those members who have provided an email address – this is encouraged as it is the most efficient means of reaching members quickly.  Such communications are sent as ‘blind copies’ so that email addresses remain unseen by other recipients.

The full database of membership data is held only by the Publicity Secretary; selected data is shared with our event organisers and/or members of the PANT committee as and when necessary. The data is not made available to any outside bodies.

Individuals have the right to know, and have corrected, the information that is held about them. They also have the right to request that their email address is not used for the purposes described above; this will however mean that they will not be informed of many of the Association’s activities.