Wear Our Gay Pride Badge Or You Can't Meet The People, The National Trust Tells It's Volunteers.

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4759510/National-Trust-tells-workers-wear-pride-badge-face-ban.html

Isn't this taking things a little too far?

[Islay]

Oh dear AOG you are really having to scrape low these days aren't you! Ouch that last comment really hit home - I must go away and think about that one!

[anotheoldgit]

Islay

Read it again, if they are not threats and punishments I don't know what is.

/// The National Trust has told workers they will be banned from meeting members of the public if they refuse to wear a rainbow lanyard throughout their celebration of the legalisation of homosexuality. ///

/// Staff at Felbrigg Hall, in Norfolk, which was gifted to the Trust by Robert Wyndham Ketton-Cremer, have been asked to wear a badge or lanyard with the rainbow flag and told they will not be able to meet and greet guests if they do not. ///

[vulcan42]

The National Trust are not employing us, we are volunteers, we don't get paid.

[anotheoldgit]

Islay

Yes it must take some time for things to sink into that bigoted mind of yours.

[Mamyalynne]

This is less about the badges and lanyards and much more about a breakdown in relationship between some of the volunteers and the Trust.

[Islay]

They are not threats and punishments if they don't abide by the rules they will do a job that is not customer facing.
part of the uniform is to wear this badge, therefore if they don't do it they will be deployed else where!

[Islay]

AOG please tell me how I am a bigot?

[vulcan42]

The National Trust needs to be very careful about this, without the volunteers, it will simply collapse.

[woofgang]

As someone who has managed volunteers in the NHS, I can tell you its the very devil. Many volunteers are wonderful committed people who are happy to work with the organisation. There are others who think because they are volunteers that the rules don’t apply to them...and still others who volunteer to build their own little empire or, worse, to be as difficult as possible. Simple fact is that if you are a volunteer, or a paid employee, then there will be a line to toe and if you don’t then you will be asked to change your role or leave.

[murraymints]

well for once I am with AOG...surely such a personal choice of support is just that..and optional...would not bother me at all..but it would not sit well if I did not have the choice in such a public declaration...

[woofgang]

Murray when you are the public face of an organisation, whether paid or a volunteer, its not your personal support you are showing by wearing a badge but the support of the organisation.

[murraymints]

then I simply would choose not to wear a badge.. if I had an issue ..and I don't..but .....

[Old_Geezer]

The National Trust is not a gay support society, there is no justification for those high up trying to use it as one, nor discriminating against volunteers who object to wearing support badges, because of that desire. Arguments in favour based on the idea that an organisation can demand what it wants, holds no water. It's an abuse of an organisation that's supposed to be looking after places.

[Ellipsis]

Once the NT decided to have the badge, enforcement of its wearing became inevitable because to allow people to not wear the badge is to allow an interpretation of "I don't support this issue". In other words, not wearing the badge is a kind of a badge in itself.

This makes the whole thing a well-intentioned but ultimately bad idea. The NT should have just stuck to its remit, "a charity that works to preserve and protect historic places and spaces - for ever, for everyone".

[Hazi-Hammenuhoth]

What on earth has volunteering for the National Trust to do with promoting homosexuality? Complete and utter nonsense. Tolerance is one thing, promotion is quite another.

[woofgang]

Murray, then your choice would be not to be a front of house volunteer

[Mamyalynne]

It is simply a fact of the anniversary that 2017 has brought - many organisations are combining this historic fact into their usual realm of activities. The NT have not suddenly become promoters of anything but incorporated the anniversary.


https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/exploring-lgbtq-history-at-national-trust-places

[murraymints]

no woofy..my choice would to be not to have anything to do with an organisation that did not allow personal choice,,and which hid behind a benevolant veneer !

[Old_Geezer]

Simple fact is that if you are in charge of volunteers, or paid employees, then it won't be your right to drive your own agenda by insisting they do something that had nothing to do with your organisation. And if you don’t then you will be unfit for the job and should leave.

[Ellipsis]

Mamy - they could explore it without changing their uniform and thereby alienating some wearers of that uniform, who have been volunteers for years and who support the remit of the organisation. On the page you link to, they don't even mention the uniform change under "What we're doing". Perhaps they didn't think it was a big deal.