Benefits available to members include:
- The chance to meet a wide ranging group of people who share your interests. Most meetings are arranged by our local groups. Meetings are often based around visits to interesting places with some old tool or trade connection. Sometimes there will be the chance to see behind the scenes, examine reserve collections etc. Many members say that a visit in the company of like-minded enthusiasts brings out the best in museum curators or owners of collections.
- Many meetings include time to display, discuss and trade tools from members' own collections. Advance notice of local meetings is available under Future Events.
- Direct contact among members is facilitated by including special areas of interest on the Members List, which is available to other members only, on this website or by post.
- Groups cover most of the country, and serve these areas:
- Northern
- East Midlands
- Anglia
- Wessex
- Amberley.
Any member can go to any local group meeting - it's all very informal - and anyone thinking of joining will also be made welcome. The Northern Group frequently meets in the Kelham Island Museum in Sheffield at the Ken Hawley Collection Trust, with which TATHS has a close working relationship. The Amberley Group meets at the Amberley Museum and Heritage Centre in Sussex, where it looks after the Society's own collection of tools as well as arranging other local activities.
- Each spring, the chance to attend the annual conference - a long weekend at a historic site in the company of other members, plus a programme of talks and the ever popular Tools Auction.
- Three times a year, a printed newsletter with short articles about tools, information about events etc. Back numbers are available for download.
- Every year or two we issue special publications which are sent free of charge to members - these are full lengths books or reproductions of interesting historical texts. To see the range produced so far, look at past publications in the shop. (The last special publication, in 2015, introduced members to the Marquois Scales.)
- Opportunities to volunteer, at Amberley, on the Committee and at seasonal events.
- The chance to support or benefit from a research grant - a Salaman Award.
