Many countries in our Naturist World have national bodies that organise and support naturism. In ANW's recent survey re found that many of you support you national or regional body (some larger countries are regionalised) because you wish to support the growth of naturism in your country. In fact more of you chose that reason than the reason of being able to take part in the events and visit the clubs that they support. 

But many of you are not federation members the two main reasons being the price and the fact that your national organisation fails in your opinion to offer you anything relevant or successfully support naturism. Too often you considered the boards to be remote in their understanding and connections with real naturist and too hung up in their own self importance. 

We have created this topic to see what you think. Do you think your national or regional naturist organisation  is doing a great job or letting you down?

But let's see this as a learning curve, that can be used for these associations to be guided by. Tell us what ideas and issues really work. Do they have a project that you consider successful? A way of raising societies understanding. A way of encouraging more naturists. Are they successfully reaching women or families? 

What is your national organisations basic attitude towards  naturism? Where does it put its emphasis of support and learning? Tell us about the success stories. 

Some of you may have specific facts, others may have rumours they wish to share, or just gut feelings about how they are or how they have been. Try and clarify the facts the thoughts and the time scale.

As some countries have more than one body, do tell us which country and which association or federation you are referring to. Please remember this is not about local clubs (we could set up something about them later). Just national and regional bodies that help support naturism and those specific clubs and events in your region or country.

We were members of a national association. Here there are associations and a federation. The association we were members of was the nearest to where we live, but at the same time, too far away to be worthwhile. Not only we couldn't participate in their activities as their beach gatherings were at non official beaches, which aren't that great either. If we're to travel 200km to a beach, we have imensly greater ones at the same distance in the north of Spain. A few years ago someone formed an association targeted specifically for people up north, but not only we had a bad feeling about it as it quickly turned into a private club dedicated to many things, but not naturism wasn't one of them. We are glad we didn't join. It is extinct, now. We would join an association protecting the beaches we do use (I mean, even gatherings like beach cleaning would be quite fun, it wouldn't be necessary for it to have special facitilities or private grounds).

After reading this post, it prompted me to check out the NZNF. When I was in Australia I joined the ANF, and volunteered to look after some of their online assets for a time.

 

It looks like NZNF is pretty active, does plenty of good stuff and has recent relevant info in their newsletters. There is however a bit of a catch. I must admit, I became aware of this catch when I joined ANF, but had forgotten about it.

 

Unless I’m incorrect, NZNF (and ANF) exist solely to promote and support the interests of naturist clubs. Not individuals. You automatically get NZNF membership if you join a club.

 

Herein lies the rub on a number of fronts. The nearest club memberships start at $400/pa. Quite steep if you’re not able to take advantage of the facilities. I’m all for financially supporting these organisations to promote naturism. $400/pa is a little prohibitive however.

 

For all sorts of reasons I personally feel the club era for naturism is past it’s use by date for all the following reasons.

1. It doesn’t necessarily move towards everyday naturism in a wider public context, such as local beaches, walking tracks, parks etc. From an organisational perspective its not in their interests for this to happen. This in turn restricts the national body who exists to promote and support these clubs.
2. There is arguably a narrow demographic within the club that a wider spectrum of society might not want to be closely associated with for all sorts of complex reasons. Least of them not being able to relate to those demographics. I’ve certainly experienced this in venues where there are perfectly nice people. I just can’t relate to them. Our worlds are in different orbits, so it’s difficult to maintain an engaging conversation. There are of course exceptions. People well travelled, quite open minded etc.
3. Being able to spend any meaningful amount of time at the club is usually going to be problematic for the types of people you ideally want there. Like families. On this point, my daughter and I joined the local golf club only to discover it’s incredibly time consuming, and therefore difficult to find the time to participate in. Not to mention expensive, and therefore wasteful. We paid about $700 to play two rounds of golf that year. Alternatively we frequently find plenty of time in the day to go down to the local beach for a quick swim. So logistically clubs are a nightmare for busy people.
4. Clubs on the whole are exclusive, catering predominately to members. I’m aware you can day visit many. The wider perception clubs and membership have however is exclusivity. A lot of people are going to feel too intimidated to cross that barrier. People have a lot of misconception about these clubs which tends to alienate them.
5. Clubs are financial organisations that non-profit or not have financial obligations and management they need to address first and foremost.

 

If I could belong to a national body interested in the rights of individuals outside of a club context, I’d absolutely support it and be a paid member. I need to look at freebeaches in NZ a little more closely again. The site is incredibly out of date.

 

There are all sorts of other issues that are a symptom of some of the points I’ve made above. Websites are archaic from the 1990s. Often terribly out of date. Poorly maintained and managed. This completely misses the mark with a large proportion of the current generation.

 

Dare I say that because of all these challenges, the overall thinking has possibly become outdated and the agendas therefore irreverent.

 

On a far more upbeat note, I feel that new online communities are superseding the old club model. They’re far more accessible, attract a far more diverse audience, and aren’t geographically constrained.

 

People can discuss and participate in conversations that begin to move the needle. Rather than being focused on “how do we attract more members?”, “how do we retain the members we have?”, “how do we become more relevant?”

Conversations online tend to be, “what day to day challenges, experiences etc have you had?” People pitch in with thoughts and ideas, and there’s far more likelihood that new thinking, new solutions are going to arise from that. ANW is case in point.

 

When we were researching and collating the Explore section of ANW some national bodies came over really well. I must admit New Zealand was one of those. I wonder if the way national naturist bodies appear in "text" is reflective of not just the naturist body but also the stereotype of that country?

Steve and I think that there should be a sliding scale of membership. One that involves club usage and one that involves support (and registering that support) of the lifestyle, allowing you to use the "members area" of the body and book into events. These people are then maybe more likely to come in contact with clubs, get a passion for naturism in their country and join. It also may highlight areas and numbers around the country where club representation is needed.

Cost  in clubs (like everything) has a need for balance between finding enough funding and not putting people off joining. To me a club should seek maximum membership and cost out for that, maybe also have a sliding scale to encourage more members to join who don't use the club constantly - with maybe a slight daily fee added to the peppercorn annual fee.

We love the fact that ANW offers a new form of club, but at the same time the national bodies and local clubs should offer greater relevance and more specific help, support and service. Meeting people in real life and growing naturist opportunities in each country is vital.      

Will do. Their site is so 1990s I'm tempted to show them an example of what they could do with it. The content is quite good, but aesthetics are somewhat outdated.