So, we have just learned the Italian Naturist bodies, that are joined in the National Federation FENAIT are doing a good job promoting naturism in Italy.

They are working to get new beaches, and maintaining  the old ones, and organizing many events.
The bad is that this is only for the Italian naturist, because all the advertisement are in Italian language...

But this is done just at local level, due the the big distance from north and south of our country, and every local body is jealous about their specific territory, and ANITA, the bigger and located mainly in the north demand to local association.

Even in the north quite close one to the other there is SesiaNAT, operating just for a single beach on the river Sesia, and TrebbiaNAT on river Trebbia.

Furthermore, within the same ANITA, there is a bad feeling, with fights to get more power.

These behaviors create some kaos, and many struggles.

May be the Italian nature...and another examples of this italianity is UNI, Unione Naturisti Italiani.
UNI own just few sites, the main is "Le Betulle", a naturist village in Piemonte.
I learned this just yesterday, it seems that UNI is the oldest and biggest, for number of members, Italian body,
it is not associated with FENAIT, but with LNV, the Liechtenstein Naturist Association!

we suppose that UNI did exit from FENAIT for any fight with the other bodies...
For us this is unbelievable! an Italian Association federated with a non-Italian body...!!!

The losing sight of the goal concern seems sadly true. And it filters off in all directions. When we launched ANW we considered that national bodies may be a little wary that the site may be drawn into swinging - but other than that we figured all these organisations would want to get involved - a social media site that took naturism seriously, had a natural attitude towards nudity, and was run by a naturist family. A site that we had painstakingly collected what we consider the largest data base of naturist opportunities in existence which took over 9 months of us both working full time every day scouring the internet and anywhere else. We sent emails out to every association in the world and offered then control of their page and a free membership for their representative and other levels of support. We have done the same a few times since. Yet where are they? Imagine how large this community could have become in the last two years if naturist organisations had let their members know about us. As social communities grow they natural pull more people in and the knock on effect would be that these people would be looking for national bodies to join and other opportunities to use. This platform is like no other that we know of in the breadth of what it can offer naturism. Our idea was always a one stop shop that would work as a bridge to allow all naturists everywhere to find exactly what they need. National bodies and local clubs, holidays and beaches, other experiences, events and services, articles, blogs, videos, debates groups and meet ups, friends, information and fun. The idea was always to enthuse people to connect, join and spend on naturism - a huge, interactive, living gateway to inspire people to want more. We know for example that many members of ANW have spent time here and been driven to join their national body and look locally, nationally and internationally for other connections. So where are these bodies? Where are the clubs? They are happy to be on non-naturist social media where there are limitations on naturism, sexual sharers galore and people who feel nudity is "devil's work." So why not take us up on our offer and work together as a global community promoting naturism? We created ANW because INF hadn't.

We have had clubs and national bodies say in the past that because we are not actually based in "add country or state name here" we are not suitable for them. But isn't the whole point that we are a global community what it is all about, connecting as a single voice and saying "we are naturists - try it out and join us." Don't people also travel? And we do have members from all over the world, and our local relevance will only grow with time, especially with association connections. How can naturism grow when the bodies always look inward? We have joined social media groups based in certain locations and the organisers of those groups will tell us that they do not want information about naturism shared that isn't based solely on that area - that could be a country, county, town and even a beach! But don't their members want to know about naturism - won't they sometimes want to look past their own fences into the wider world? You then look at these internet groups and hear them bemoaning the lack of activity, members get bored by the limitations and disappear. 

Maybe that is happening to naturist national bodies. People need to feel that they are connected to living breathing entity that is naturism and they need to see them reaching out to the wider world with open arms and connecting for the sake of naturism. That is the goal and when the goal is ignored being members of those bodies seems fruitless.

Steve ANW said: People need to feel that they are connected to living breathing entity that is naturism and they need to see them reaching out to the wider world with open arms and connecting for the sake of naturism. That is the goal and when the goal is ignored being members of those bodies seems fruitless.

Great!

I read in an article I found on BN an interview done by one of it's members for the Essex Echo, where the naturists quoted the figure from a survey which has been done, that states there are 3.7 million naturists in the UK. The article is here.

Naturist tells of positives of group after Maldon boat trip | Echo (echo-news.co.uk)

Now if this is a correct figure, and I would love to know which survey this is and read it, (Sadly not mentioned) Considering BN has up to 10,000 members, some of which we know are from abroad, that means that the majority of people who identify as naturists, are not members of the national organisation. If we apply that logic to the rest of the other world national organisations, it does suggest, that most naturists do not use their national bodies.

There is an obvious gap here, and the majority are shieing away from organised naturisum, which cannot be good for the naturists movement. We have to ask why? 

It appears that the national bodies are failing to get the message out, and so we would suggest, that as passionate supports of the lifestyle, we should try to speak up and get our national bodies to listen to us. It is obvious something is going wrong, some of which we highlighted in our blog, but it also appears that there is market out there, and it needs to be catered to.

The figures and statistics of naturist and naturism around the globe are very impressive, there are miilions spent each year on naturist holidays. I have read facts based on sales in Florida and in France alone and they are staggering - (I need to re search for some of these facts and figures). What it suggests to me is that a lot of people just dabble - a fortnight a year or a couple of beach trips per summer - but maybe these are exactly the sort of people who need enticing. 

The "dabbling" naturist  may not think it is worth paying to join their national body or a local group - but they may think heading to a site like ANW which is free for basic membership and finding out lots of information is worth doing. Then they may start to think "wait a minute I enjoy my time on the beach in August, and look there is a swim near me or why not book a holiday - and look there are lots of people who enjoy naturism and they seem really nice" - and then they may get the bug and then they will want to join their local or national bodies and find out more. 

We are only scratching the surface of naturism - but by working together we could really start to make an impact. When Steve first became a vegetarian you could only really buy some soya mince packets - he relied on just cooking vegetables and pulses. Most menus had no veggie options and lots and lots of things that are veggie now weren't. Shortly afterwards quorn and Linda Mc products started to spread into supermarkets and look at how well veggies are catered for now. If we can do the same with naturists we won't just encourage current naturists to start getting better involved but we will also encouraged new naturists - because the more popular something appears the more appealing it appears. When Steve first became a veggie it was frowned upon - many people in the UK figured vegetarianism was simply strange - but now it is widely accepted as part of society - could we not try and get naturism to move from "strange" to "just part of life?" I think we owe it to ourselves to try. That is certainly what Steve and I want to do. I think it is time that clubs and national bodies start to understand that we really are 100% on their side and we really want to help. 

They need to stop considering that they can be part of an elite group in a secret society - and - at the same time suugest that naturism is "normal" - you cannot have it both ways. I do think that some naturists act like naturism is too good to share. I have read words like - "I don't want to let others know about the beach I go to because I don't want it to get busy" - and yet others say "I go to the beach and there are no naturists there." We really do have to see that the answer to naturisms issues are all answered by one thing - Positive Growth. All positive growth has to be encouraged and all negative growth has to be discouraged.