Election Address for President: John Paine

I am standing for President to help BN meet the challenges of the 21st Century. BN needs better management decisions, a review of what it does for ordinary naturists, a strategy to counter the nuisance caused by sex pests on naturist beaches. Should you elect me as President I would undertake urgent action on these.

A naturist for over 30 years I have visited many naturist sites and Clubs, and met many naturists, in the UK and Europe. I regularly write articles for UK naturist magazines. I am 63 years old, a member of three Clubs.

A retired community development officer, I have been BN national Research & Liaison Officer. On the EC (2004-2006) I worked hard, with fellow EC members Richard Burnham and the late Rex Watson, to get better management practices, and to open up the bizarre secrecy that surrounds BN’s top decision making.

As RLO I helped naturists on beach issues at Studland, Eastney, Brighton, Sandwich Bay, Margate. During my Ainsdale Inquiry, in July 2006, Sefton Council asked BN to help create an official naturist section at Ainsdale Beach. Sadly, some within BN’s current management did not allow me to pursue that. I will continue to actively support the work of present RLO Malcolm Boura.

Present policies lose BN thousands of members every year. The latest published BN accounts (for 2005) show income was £292,376, yet BN management still made a 2005 net loss of £49,312! Current BN annual income of £322,000 should be sufficient. It does not require increased membership fees – it needs sound financial management!

I will help Chairman Richard Daniels make the hard decisions that BN needs. Despite all the resource devoted to commercial activities in recent years BN membership still drops. Most BN members don’t belong to landed Clubs. The future of BN lies in individual members, with sound leadership, dealing with key issues that ordinary naturists feel are important. That is how BN will attract many more thousands of UK naturists.

A vote for me is a vote to change BN’s direction. I stand for open and competent management, good governance, financial prudence. I want BN to become an effective campaigning and representative national body for naturism. I want improved representation of naturists’ interests. Make your vote COUNT to move naturism out of the closet and for it to become a valid lifestyle choice in mainstream society.

john-paine@talk21.com

Election Address for Vice-Chairman: Reg Barlow

We all know that British Naturism has been losing money in recent years; none of us know the actual reason why. Poor management? Commercialisation? No idea. The workings of the EC are not transparent enough despite publishing a condensed version of the minutes. What I am going to tell you though is what I do know. BN needs a new sense of purpose as a pro-active campaigner and I am the person to provide it.

My membership card tells me that I have been a member since January 1986 and leafing through some old copies of BN it is remarkable how little has changed. Comforting in some ways, an institution carrying on regardless of the changes in how society views social nudity and we, the members, British Naturism. Worrying in others. Nothing stays the same forever. There are now more naturists outside BN than there are in it and that needs to change.

A houseplant, fed and watered regularly will prosper until its roots fills the container it’s in and restricts further growth. Even if it’s well looked after, a pot-bound plant will eventually suffer and die. British Naturism is that pot-bound houseplant, and needs re-potting and the growing medium replaced, to give it a new lease of life. It’s time for new people and fresh ideas, competently executed to take BN into the future. I am a part of that future.

A Training and Development Manager in the civil service, I am a member of two professional bodies: the ILM (management) and CIPD (Human Resources), and often required to develop and implement practical solutions to problems encountered in the directorate I work for. I believe that this has given me the knowledge and experience appropriate for a not-for-profit organisation like BN: skills and competencies to make a tangible contribution to it and naturism, bringing about change for the better.

You are the gardener. A vote for me as Vice-Chairman is a vote to change BN’s direction, which I believe has been failing for some time. I stand for open, competent management, good governance and financial prudence. For restructuring BN as an effective, campaigning organisation with improved representation of individual members’ interests. In short, a representative body to be proud of.

Vote to take naturism out of the closet and turn it into a valid lifestyle of choice for mainstream society.

reg.barlow@dsl.pipex.com

Election address for International Officer: Stuart Troughton

Well I said I would be back, and I am. A little older and hopefully a lot wiser. One thing that has certainly changed is that I am no longer single. Yes, I got married about six months ago. Nothing else has changed. I am still committed to opening up BN, to making sure that the members come first and ensuring that any decision made is good value for money. I am even still prepared to listen when you complain! To make sure that your complaints do not fall on deaf ears I am standing for International Officer this time.

Yes, it is a change of direction, but one that I feel may help British naturists most. Our commitment to the INF and other bodies is very laudable, but at what cost to the members of BN? Ask yourself one question, how much benefit do you get from INF membership? I think it is time the focus should be principally on our membership here at home, not just our image abroad. Image is nothing without substance!

I know that BN has been failing for a long time. Falling membership numbers and the loss of money that brings are both well documented. It appears that the scale of the problem is in dispute. Stuff the scale, it’s how we cure it that is the important question. Want an answer?

BN is more than just a collection of clubs and a few individuals. Now the individuals outnumber the clubs, but what both the clubs and the individuals want is a place they can all be heard. BN should be, needs to be, that place. What you must ask yourself is, why isn’t it?

BN seems to be run by a few for the benefit of a few. What BN needs is to be run by the few for the benefit of all! I firmly believe that the only future that can work is an open, fully accountable BN, one run for the benefit of all members, both club and non-club.

Unless we have open meetings that any member can attend as a guest, full minutes of every meeting published without spin, and proper roles and responsibilities then this is all going to end very soon and very badly.

You know what is at stake. You now have a chance to do something. Still waiting to know what to do?

stuart@trognet.demon.co.uk

Election address for Treasurer: Duncan Heenan

BN is sick. I want to help make it better.

In the two most recently published years’ accounts BN spent £82,049 more than its income, running cash reserves down below the level of the outstanding creditors. At the same time our membership numbers have been falling for a decade, and now stands at not much more than half what it was at its peak. BN’s Executive has responded to this decline with a policy of commercialism in recent years which I believe is both wrong in principle, and has been badly carried out. The result is financial weakness with little to show for it. We ignore this at our peril.

Even more importantly, I see little real progress having been made in BN’s prime task – of making naturism more widely acceptable. To me naturism is a lifestyle, not a hobby. I feel BN’s role as a National Representative Body should be to proactively campaign to make this marvellous lifestyle more liveable for anyone who chooses it. To focus the organisation on this means leaving some things to the Clubs and commercial organisations which they can do better.

So who am I, and why do I think I can help? I am 58 and have been married for 36 years. Throughout this time we have been naturists, including being members of 3 sun clubs and various swims, helping on the committees, and have been BN members since 1980. I am a Chartered Accountant with a successful business career ending up in general management, which allowed me to retire early. I keep busy now with charity and church involvements, but am happiest in outdoor activities such as sailing, swimming, gardening and rambling – naked whenever possible. I am standing for election as I feel that BN needs both better management and governance, plus a general change of policy direction. I feel qualified to assist with all of these.

A vote for me is a vote to change BN’s direction, which I believe has been failing for some time. I stand for open and competent management, and good governance; financial prudence; restructuring BN to become an effective proactive campaigning and representative national body for naturism; and improved representation of individual members’ interests, with proper 2-way communication. Vote to move naturism out of the closet, to become a valid lifestyle choice in mainstream society.

duncanheenan@tiscali.co.uk

Politics: A necessary evil

(This is an article written by Duncan Heenan in the magazine Naturist Life.)

Politics is like the drains, most people only care about them when they go wrong! Sadly, naturist politics is no different. Most naturists want nothing more than to shed their clothes and get on with life. However, the ability to live that lifestyle depends on how far it is permitted and defended. That’s why we need a National Representative Body. British Naturism claims to be that National Body, only it seems to be going wrong, so some people are taking an increasing interest.

BN has its origins in the Sun Clubs. This was originally a strength as it attracted many dedicated people, but it has now become a weakness, because BN still runs itself like a small Sun Club rather than a proper National Body. It has been inward looking for too long and ignored many changes in society, making it increasingly irrelevant to today’s naturists. The majority of BN members nowadays are not even Club members. BN’s ‘playground politics’, based more on personalities than issues, which has dominated BN thinking in recent years, has also alienated many members. It is no wonder most BN members don’t like political jokes – in the past too many of them got elected! The result has been a declining membership standing now at only about half what it was at its peak, and very stretched finances. Most members don’t vote – except with their feet.

About 3 years ago, in a desperate attempt to turn things around, then Chairman Mick Ayers appointed a ‘Commercial Manager’, Andrew Welch, to try to work a miracle. The experiment has failed. Since then he has been paid around £130,000 and achieved little. Member numbers are still dropping and hard earned cash reserves are rapidly diminishing. This dire outcome results both from the pathetic way it has been ‘managed’, and the fact that the whole strategy is mistaken. The ‘events’ which have formed the centrepiece of the BN’s strategy have attracted only about 2% of the membership, and that includes BN officers who were paid expenses to go! Proof surely, that it is not what the vast majority (98%?)of naturists want from their National Body.

So what do UK naturists want? I believe the main thing is simply the ability to live the naturist life, in their own individual ways, with as little restriction as possible. And on that front BN has made no progress for decades. To achieve it we need a proper campaigning and representative body to change things. And things can be changed! Love them or loathe them, such movements as Gender Equality, Disabled & Gay Rights have all achieved their objects by being organised and focussed on what is important to them. I’d like BN to do that, and leave it to the Clubs and commercial organisations to do the sorts of things they are so much better at. Within BN, such activity merely dissipates effort and wastes money, as do some of its other activities which have long since lost any meaning. Just look at the budget to see BN’s current priorities. For example, in 2007 the Research and Liaison Officer (who is responsible for campaigning) is allowed just £1,000, compared with £4,500 for Overseas Officer, £13,000 for INF subscriptions; and £7,500 for EC meetings!

Meanwhile BN’s Executive Council carry on regardless of all the warning signs showing they’ve got it all badly wrong. This is because the EC is made up of people who can not think outside the box of a small Club Committee. None of them have any real management experience or training, and like too many Club Committees, they have been ‘elected’ either because no one else will stand, or on the basis of a well known face, regardless of whether they are actually any good at the job.

This summer’s elections could be different though. For the first time in years there are proper elections with all the main EC posts being contested. It is a straight fight between the ‘Old Guard’ who got BN in to this mess, and the ‘BNchange’ candidates who want to make some real changes and get naturism in the UK moving. The BNchange candidates (John Paine, Reg Barlow, Stuart Troughton and myself) all have track records of achieving real changes in the real world. Find out more on http://bnchange.wordpress.com .

It’s up to BN members! You can vote for change, and see it happen; or you can watch BN slowly disappear, and with it any prospect of wider naturist acceptance.

The BN Change Manifesto: What we intend to do if we are elected

Candidates standing under the BNchange banner are individuals, but share some common values and aims. These are summarised below, and would form the basis of an action plan, if elected to reinvigorate and transform BN in to a well governed, efficient, campaigning and representative organisation for naturists in the UK. Obviously it can not all be achieved overnight, but we would wish to start on this programme with as little delay as possible and work with our EC colleagues to do this. The order of listing does not imply any order of priority or importance.

• We shall consult both BN members and other naturists as to what they want from BN, in what priority and at what cost, and to inform other programmes with the results.
• We shall review and report on the up to date financial state of BN, and the existing budgets.
• We shall replace the position of Commercial Manager with that of Campaigning Manager in line with a new policy of giving campaigning a higher priority.
• We shall develop and implement a proactive campaigning strategy, aimed at gaining social and legal acceptance of public nudity, which is effective, sustainable, affordable and practical.
• We shall develop, with other agencies, a policy aimed at removing the scourge of sex pests from naturist venues.
• We shall continue to defend, and extend, clothing optional facilities as a part of an overall campaign strategy.
• We shall review BN’s Regional structure to better integrate it with BN’s national aims, and make it more effective and relevant to members.
• We shall review BN’s constitution and consider the possibility of incorporation, to make it fit for purpose both now and in the future.
• We shall be more open with our members, giving more full and timely information, promoting dialogue and encouraging participation.
• We shall review how we hold the AGM, and other member meetings, to make them more effective channels of communication, governance and democracy.
• We shall work to improve the management, administration and committee structures within BN to improve efficiency and reduce costs.
• We shall improve BN’s planning and monitoring procedures to produce better, more open decision making and accountability generally.
• We shall review BN’s participation in International Affairs, including membership of INF, to seek relevance to British naturists’ interests and value for money.