My advent calendar tells me I'm edging closer to Christmas and a New Year. My bags are packed as are the presents as with 10 days off work, my family and I are heading down to Manchester for Christmas. Christmas Day will be spent at my Sisters house with my 3 year old niece Nancy. Nancy is very excited and I've been told she will open my presents for Me, how useful. Although being off for Christmas I will be back in work in time for New Year's Eve. No doubt Edinburgh Castle will be busy with lots of tourists looking for things to do to keep themselves entertained. With Christmas and New Year just around the corner I think it's time I told what's going in 2026 for MNTV, it's time to get your diaries out.
Firstly we have 2 weekends planned for 2026; at the end of November 8 volunteers headed to Calke Abbey and had a fabulous weekend even if the weather was a bit dubious at times. The weekend was enjoyed so much that when I got home I emailed the Ranger Team there and asked to book in on 3rd to 6th July, however with restructuring going on at Calke, Vicky wasn't sure what would be going on there. She is becoming Lead Ranger for the Calke Estate which includes her current remit of Staunton Harold Reservoir so she would like to get herself settled in that role before saying yes, and asked me to get back in touch in March so watch this space.
Whilst we were at Calke we met up with Shropshire and Staffordshire NTVs (SSNTV) and they let us know that The Trust is rethinking its variety of its accomodation essentially getting rid of some of them which may mean that cheap weekends are a thing of the past. Having said that I did email Dylan and Lewis in Snowdonia and asked to book in for next winter, Friday 27th to Sunday 29th November, and although we don't know if we will be able to stay at Hendre Isaf basecamp they definitely want to have our help so whatever happens there will be a weekend. And don't forget you can join us on a weekend and not stay with us all, as Andy and Sarah did this year.
With weekends out of the way now let me tell you about the programme for 2026; the programme is I think complete, I'm still waiting for replies from a couple of Rangers but from January to Easter it is definitely confirmed, we spend a lot of time closer to home on these days. Your first workday is on 11th January at Alderley Edge. We are currently there 7 more times over the year. Our first longer distance day comes on 22nd March at Chirk Castle, Jean will be leading this day and it will be a joint workday with the Merseyside group (MENTV). This year we will have lots of chances to catch up with other groups like ours, as earlier this year the committee took a look at the volunteering figures for the last two years and we found that the trend was that further away properties were getting a lot less people than our local properties. The decision was taken to have more joint workdays this means that the Rangers can use their resources better and if they normally have a weekend off it's not wasted.
April and May bring us our first visits to Merseyside with joint workdays with MENTV and also a joint workday on 19th April to Erddig and on 31st May we travel to Biddulph Grange to meet up with Shropshire and Staffordshire NTV. We also have a visit to Alderley and Styal.
June brings us two more joint workdays the first being Hardcastle Crags with West Yorkshire NTV and another trip to Formby with MENTV. I also hope the group gets to visit Dunham in June, Dunham, are I think short of staff and are a little hesitant about booking in workdays as they are not sure of staffing numbers. Hopefully we will be back there more regularly soon.
Along with our potential weekend July also brings us joint workdays at Speke and Dunham with MENTV and a workday at Lyme.
August brings another joint workday with WYNTV at Hardcastle and hopefully a joint workday with MENTV at Erddig we also return to Hayfield after the nesting season.
In September after 14 years away we return to Shugborough Hall for a joint workday with SSNTV we hope to get a great turn out just like they did for our workday at Calke Abbey we also have joint workdays with MENTV at Speke and Formby.
With Autumn now upon us October to December brings us closer to home with a mixture of workdays at Lyme, Alderley, Styal, Hayfield, hopefully Dunham Massey and our traditional trip to Biddulph to no doubt take out the Dahlias.
Your worksite leaders signed up for the first 3 months just this week and are eager to get back to it. If you fancy having a go at leading then talk to one of them about what it is they do and the benefits or perhaps the challenges and if after that you still fancy drop us an email and we will pair you up with an expert.
The programme may change a little so keep your whits about you and wait for the weekly email coming out before the workday. Some of these emails may just ask who is interested with no details of the task as different groups work differently and Rangers wanting to know how many people to expect before planning the task. The dates will be on the website in the New Year.
Right that's the workdays sorted...in April 2026 MNTV are turning 40, in August we sent you a save the date if you didn't get it then do let us know, we are celebrating on Saturday 13th June, at Lyme Park, Claire and Chris came up trumps with the location for us, we are very much looking forward to it. More details will be out in January. Along with having a party we wanted to celebrate by giving something back, with the help of the team at Alderley we will be planting a hedge, it'll be the MNTV hedge that we will look after in years to come. Tim and Issy at Alderley are very excited about this opportunity for them and us.
Earlier this year, as one of my first jobs as Chair, I bestowed Honourary Membership on Charlie Spiller and Hazel Pryor, they were very surprised and delighted to accept. As part of the Honourary Membership we gifted Charlie £30 gift vouchers for Chesters by the River which is a very lovely gifty shop and cafe close to where she lives at Elterwater Hostel, for Hazel we gifted £30 gift vouchers for National Trust. We hope they enjoy their gifts. I am planning on bestowing more Honourary Memberships next year, so watch this space. Below is Charlie enjoying a cuppa and a cake with some of her vouchers.
The committee has worked extremely hard this year adding 125.50 hours to the hours for the group which currently stands at 1536 hours for the year beginning January to December. The committee is a small select group but we are looking for new members to join us. We have a vacancy available for Social Media Officer please email the committee for more details. We also have opportunities for other roles if you think you can add anything to the group then please speak to one of the committee on a workday or send us an email. Your current committee is Jenny, Denise, Daniel, Adrian and Myself. Time spent on social media is up to you but we do ask that you join us for committee meetings which take place about every 7 weeks on Zoom for about 90mins.
As a member of the group if you partake in 50 hours or more of volunteering with the group then you are entitled to a supporter group card which gets you into NT properties in England and Wales for free and the majority of Scottish ones too. Your volunteer card also lets you gives you free entry to National Trust places and 20% discount on items you buy from our shops or cafés that cost more than £1 (except gift cards and stamps) and discount on National Trust holidays (including Historic House Hotels).There are also discounts at some high street shops, my particular favourite is Cotswold Outdoors. If you would like more details then email the committee to find out more.
Formby have been in touch to ask how many hours we have volunteered with them this year and with those figures they sent their volunteer impact report for 2025 and Manchester and Merseyside combined donated a total of 453 hours good work everyone. They also sent the Autumn and Winter Newsletter which has this gem in it. Blast from the Past - We recently discovered an un-opened packet of crispsfrom the 1980’s in the dunes! A fascinating find and striking reminder of how long litter lingers. Thank you for helping toprotect this special place by taking home everything you bring.
To finish off, we all no doubt tuck into our turkey or whatever we have for our Christmas dinner which we know we will be eating for days to come. Here's a poem to plan what to do with the leftovers.
The 12 Days of Turkey - Anon
All that is left for me to say on behalf of the committee is have a very Merry Christmas and a fabulous New Year.
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