Sometimes if you're buying a gift membership, you do wonder how they can really help the charity you're buying it from.   Can treating someone to a membership really make a difference?  

Well, the National Trust has five ways in which their membership scheme can help them preserve Britain's beautiful places... 

Save some very important rockpools
Members help the National Trust protect 775 miles of coastline. The beaches you and I enjoyed as children, with our memories of picnics on sandy beaches, building sandcastles, exploring rockpools, and going for walks on  windy days can be enjoyed by our children and generations of children to come.   Members can help the Trust work to keep the coastline open and accessible for all.  It's been doing this work for 50 years - your gift membership can help it keep doing this for another 50!

Protect our livestock and wildlife
On a Snowdonian sheep farm, Bill and Ben protect newborn lambs from foxes.  They aren't dogs - they are Andean alpacas.  They’re called Bill and Ben. But they’re not actually dogs, they’re Andean alpacas who excel at protecting lambs - they are huge, and run towards sounds of distress, scaring off attackers.  The Trust looks after acre after acre of places millions call home - rare butterflies, barn owls, wild ponies, seals, otters, shy water voles, red squirrels, red warblers, native deer… They’re all thriving thanks to the love and care of the Trust's members, volunteers, and rangers.

Get up close to our ancestors
Members help to unlock the stories of the past, whehter it's uncovering 4th century Roman mosaics in Gloucestershire, excavating an Iron Age savings fund squirrelled away in a cave, or bringing people closer to the footprints of cavemen.   The Trust can work with archaelogists, restoration experts and historians, as well as local communities, schools and volunteers, to help people experience the lives of our ancestors

Those are just five of the many fantastic things the National Trust can look after. So your gift membership will never be wasted.  It will be busy working to protect Britain's beautiful places and species for generations to enjoy today and in the future.  Join the National Trust today

One of the great things about giving a Gift Membership is that you know your gift is helping a cause.  It is making a difference.  That difference could be in another country on the other side of the world, or it could be right in the recipient's local area.   

I was looking at the Wildlife Trust's website today.   The Wildlife Trust is a UK based charity, and I was having a look through their website, and I happened to come across the Berks, Bucks & Oxon Wildlife Trust.  

Looking at their Membership pages, they really brought home to me that, although the Wildlife Trust covers the UK, you can choose to make a difference to wildlife right in your loved one's local area with a gift membership. 

Through a gift membership with the Berks, Bucks & Oxon Wildlife Trust, your gift will help protect habitats (that's wildlife homes) and so protect species such as the water vole, otter, and butterfly.  Members can enjoy a closer connection with the natural world in their area. Your gift will give locals a place where they can connect with nature and be a part of it.  So you really can make a difference to wildlife in the local area where your loved one lives with your gift membership to their nearest Wildlife Trust.  

There are 47 Widllife Trusts around the UK, all helping nature, so you are bound to find one that is fairly local to you - there's even one in the island of Alderney in the Channel Islands.  

Click here to find your local Widllife Trust.  It will have details of their membership schemes on its website.