Recently we have been talking, we live in Manchester in a unique location in so much as a few miles up the road one way, we are in Yorkshire, a few miles the other we are in Derbyshire, and a little way behind us in the next town, it is Lancashire, and we are on the very northern edge of Cheshire. Quite a few of the towns belonging to these counties are considered part of the sprawl of what is know as Greater Manchester, of which the actual city centre is about forty minutes on a good days driving in the car away.
There is no shortage of places to visit for us, we have often travelled out to scenic places such as Ladybower, or Derwent, where they practiced for the Dambusters raids during WW2. The biggest problem for us is Clubs that offer naturist facilities.
Manchester has a Sun and Air society, and one would say “Wonderful” The problem for us is, that it is so far away from us, it will take too much time on busy congested roads to get there to be even worth a visit, let alone membership. For a small family like ours, who are not rolling in funds, a year’s subscription, whilst appearing great value if used regularly, is pretty expensive. We do use the Worsley facility once a month which is run by North West Naturists, and we love it, and have become regulars, but is it enough?
Recently, whilst wandering ANW we came across South Yorkshire Naturists, they are similar to North West Naturists, and do regular swim meets, alas they meet even further away from us. Wandering around Facebook, we encountered a group who meet up on a regular basis, usually in woodlands, sadly we cannot remember their name, and have since scoured through Facebook looking for them again, because what caught our attention was the term “None Landed Club.” They all arrange regular meetings in natural places, and set a location that is private to meet and enjoy social naturism, to be honest it looked like fun. Today we got our printed copy of H&E, and as always went straight to Anna’s article to read, and something caught our attention. Firstly, Anna noted there are not too many “Landed Clubs” near to them, and also wrote a little further in her article, “Even some beaches act as club alternatives.”
We cannot deny, we sat back and considered her statement, and had to ask, is that actually the future of naturism, nomadic groups meeting up to share activities not held back by the sky high costs of running a club, or expensive memberships?
Now we are not trashing clubs, honestly, if we had the cash, Manchester would have a city centre based club, because we would build one, (Trust us, Rin has already planned it) but sadly that reality for us is a very slim one, unless fate suddenly favours us, but it did get us thinking, that being a member of a group who meets regularly is not such a bad idea, and is far more cost efficient than most other places, as it involves little or no membership costs.
Is the idea of groups meeting to say have more interaction in numbers a better way to get more people involved in a more efficient and organised way, especially considering simply by being members of Worsley, we have been told of many places that are worth visiting which are scenic, and private?
We thought we would throw out the net and see what others think, is this something that would have you happily joining up in your local region, or do you feel it would become complicated and pointless. Let us hear your views on this and get a conversation going on the advantages and disadvantages.
RnR