There’s amazing beaver news from the National Trust!   And it’s a great example of how membership supports conservation.

At the Holnicote Estate in Somerset, the Eurasian beavers Yogi and Grills were released in the enclosure back in January 2020.  The aim was to improve flood management and also support the health of rivers and streams.  And these beavers are really busy – restoring biodiversity loss, showing the flow of water AND managing the effects of climate change!

They've also been busy producing their first kit in 2021 and twins in the spring of 2022.  The three kits – Rashford, Russo and Toone – were named after England football stars, with the help of the public!

And now, the National Trust has given us all the chance to join an interactive 360 degree video tour of the beaver enclosure they now have! 

You can watch the beavers as they beaver away and go about their daily lives and it’s also a great opportunity to find out how the beavers are changing the landscape there. 

You can explore the lodge, dams and pools that these eco-engineers have created, and watch footage of the beavers and their kits!

The National Trust is going to add more footage to the tour in the future – it’s a very exciting project!

Whilst the beavers are beavering away, the Holnicote team are beavering away as well.  They are looking to see how the beavers are changing the environment around them.   They are creating dams and deep pools of water which in turn has created homes for wildlife such as amphibians, bats, otters, kingfisher, dipper and waterfowl.

Image © National Trust/Nick Upton

Go beavers!  Do have a look at the beaver cam – it really is exciting, but I also found it very peaceful and restful simply watching the beautiful scenes of nature!   And if you don’t see them the first time, take another look another time of day – you never know what you’ll spot!

More dam news from those Beavers!

The National Trust has a guide on beavers and you can find out lots more about there and what the Trust is doing to beaver away for beavers.

Memberships supports the conservation work the National Trust is doing

• Members help the National Trust protect over 780 miles of coastline;
• Members help the Trust to protect and promote the outdoors in its care so that everyone can connect to nature, and members inspired the Trust to launch its well-known “50 things to do before you’re 11 and three quarters” campaign to get children outdoors.
• Members help the Trust look after woodlands, both old ones and new ones
• And members have helped support conservation efforts such as the beaver release in Somerset

So what do members get?

There are lots of benefits, including free access to over 500 places in the Trust’s care.  There’s free parking at most National Trust car parks for members, and you get the National Trust Handbook, which is packed full of useful information about the places you can visit.  You also get the National Trust Magazine three times a year – it’s full of inspiration, interviews and news, and there’s access to the Trust’s online Members’ Area, with lots of behind the scenes features and first-look previews!  Find out more and give a gift membership today!

Those lovely people at gift experience company Into the Blue have a range of experiences for all sorts of interests and they often have special offers.

You could try your hand at cheese making
in Essex, London or Buckinghamshire

These gift experiences include a cheese making experience, flight simulators, archery, chocolate making, wine tasting, even a blacksmith course, beer experiences, gin experiences - so lots to choose from.  If you fancied your hand at writing, then you could look at the online writing courses. 

There are a number of flight simulator experiences on offer
- Airbus 320, Messerschmitt vs Spitfire Combat,
Boeing 737, and a fighter pilot simulator

How about a two night break away?

There are also a couple of escape breaks, if you feel like getting away from it all. 

There's a Kids Superstar Singer Experience
with opportunities around the country. 
It's now £59.00 instead of £99.00! 

Don't forget that Into the Blue also have a number of gourmet gifts and subscriptions to choose from, covering goodies such as coffee, gin, rum, sweets, brownies, wine and eating out.  These can be found here.

Fly off to Into the Blue and go browsing!  

Did you know that May is Local and Community History Month?

The aim is to raise awareness of local history – often forgotten besides the histories of people such as Henry VIII or events such as the Second World War.   But it’s also a chance to promote history to local communities and get people involved.

Getting involved in a local history group is also a great way to meet other people who are also interested in history, so like-minded people, and you can learn a lot from each other.

The Local and Community History Month is organised by the Historical Association.  It’s a chance to get out and about in your area, and really delve into how  your local area has changed, what’s happened and why, the local characters involved,  how it connected with the outside world and so forth.   The Association have 10 Top Tips for Researching the History of Where You Live so this would be a great place to start and there will be events going on all over the country.

One great source of local history is of course newspapers. Thanks to a great project between the British Library and the British Newspaper Archive, there are now over 84 million pages of newspapers you can access online through a subscription.  They’re adding more and more pages each week and there are still new titles being added, too.  So you can find out all about local history in your area even if  you are still restricted, or do your research online and then  head off to spot history, stand where it happened, and imagine what life would have been like

The British Newspaper Archive gives us a chance to see what readers wanted to read about and hear about, what was popular to sell and buy at the time – the advertisements are a great source of information – and what sort of social events were held.  You can give a gift subscription for one month or choose to run it for longer.

Local and Community History Month is also an opportunity to raise awareness of the Historical Association itself.

The Historical Association has a number of memberships, including a Gift Membership –  and the Historian Membership which is for anyone who just loves history.  There are also different memberships for those involved in the subject at primary or secondary level and you can see what the different membership levels include here.  The website on its own is a massive mine of information for people involved at a professional level e.g. history teachers or wannabe history teachers but there’s also lots of articles and topics of interest for people who just love the subject.

Historian Membership of the Historical Association includes The Historian,
the quarterly magazine of the Historical Association

Historian Members receive The Historian quarterly magazine (not every membership includes this) and you can download a free copy by registering online to see what it’s like.  It’s a great gift for anyone who teaches or studies history – or who just loves it.  I did History for my degree and still love immersing myself in the past to escape from the craziness of this modern world we live in and daily routine!

Memberships help support the Association’s mission to develop the teaching, learning and enjoyment of history at all levels, for generations to come.

Members also have free access to over 350 high-quality podcast talks by history experts; these cover historical periods, regions and themes, so there’s plenty to discover!

The Historical Association was originally established in part to bring people together who were interested history, and there are over 45 local branches around the UK meeting regularly.  Branches organise a programme of speakers every year so that members and the public can hear from historians and researchers.  You can find your closest branch here.  They may also be history visits and CPD events, it depends on the branch.

Find out about the Historical Association's Historian Membership here 

There's also the British Association for Local History, which is the national association devoted to local history.  It publishes books and pamphlets on local history, and it also publishes both The Local Historian, a quarterly journal, and Local History News, a topical magazine.  It has lots of resources online, plus events and there are even classroom exercises to bring local history into the classroom!  There are several different types of membership.  Visit the British Association for Local History here