I appreciate that The Trustees of Reservations exists, and I appreciate the work they do to safeguard nature and historic sites throughout Massachusetts.
But I’m just so tired of how badly run their membership program is, of how poorly they treat members, and of the half-assed job they do on some basic maintenance tasks. So much so, in fact, that I’m probably going to cancel my membership the next time it comes up for renewal.
My concerns include:
- They publish numerous email addresses for contacting them and then don’t respond to emails sent to those addresses.
- They don’t respond to phone, email, or postal-mail inquiries to their membership department.
- They don’t remind members when their membership is coming up for renewal, even when explicitly asked (multiple times!) to do so.
- They continue to spam people with membership appeals and waste money sending them paper membership mailings months after they’ve already renewed.
- The trail markings and signage at many of their properties are in disrepair and clearly have not been upkept for too long.
I want to expand a bit on the lack of responsiveness since I think that’s the worst problem.
- When I renewed my membership, I made note on the renewal form that I hadn’t been contacted about it expiring and asked someone from the membership department to contact me to discuss this.
- I emailed their generic “info” mailbox on May 24 to report a problem with the signage at one of their properties.
- I emailed a question to the dedicated Dunes’ Edge mailbox on May 25.
- I also emailed a question to the dedicated Tully Lake Campground mailbox on May 25.
- I mailed a paper letter to the membership department on June 30 expressing my concerns and explicitly asking someone to reply.
- I emailed the membership inbox on July 14 to report problems with a specific property as well as to complain about the prior lack of responsiveness.
I have not received a response to a single one of these inquiries.
As I wrote in the letter I sent to The Trustees on June 30: “I have attempted to contact The Trustees multiple times at email addresses you advertise and no one has ever responded to a single one of my emails. One starts to get the impression that The Trustees don’t actually care about their members other than as a source of funds, you know?”
If my relationship with the organization is entirely transactional to them, then it would seem smart for me to treat it as entirely transactional on my end as well, which means withdrawing from the transaction if I don’t feel like I’m getting sufficient value out of it. 🤷
