About BN

British Naturism members may be aware of complaints that we have received, followed by a specific incident, over the last few days in connection with the fact that children were being allowed to attend our BN Blackpool weekend swim at The Sandcastle waterpark. ‘Anti-grooming’ groups who purport to protect children from harm, voiced their disgust at the event and roused their many supporters to post similar comments online, many on BN promotional pages and to send us direct messages. Many of

5 Months to Go… It’s always difficult, isn’t it, when an annual event comes and goes and we’re left having to wait an entire 12 months until it rolls round again? Like Christmas, Pancake Day or the Wimbledon finals it feels only natural to wish for 12 months to become, say, 10, or nine. Did you feel that way about The Great British Skinny Dip? Did you wish hard? Someone must have because even though it was four months ago there are only 5 months left before it’s back again. GBSD is moving t

2019 saw us move to the lovely Best Western Hotel Royale - a hotel within the same Oceana group that we’d used previously. It meant sacrificing the sea views but we got a swimming pool so nobody minded - and the hotel was definitely a step up from The Ocean Beach. The Bournemouth weekend always has a lovely feel to it, a real sense of community. It may not have the adrenaline packed pace of Nudefest but you are never too far away from the next activity or entertainment. The spacious lounge bar

‘In the three months since laying out the strategic aims in the last magazine, we have been working to advance some of those areas.  Feedback from members has helped us prioritise where to focus effort and that seems fitting as the theme running through these items is to expand communication!’ says Vice Chair, Mark Bass Promoting naturism to encourage people to get involved, or at the very least respect those who do, demands that we will tell the public about the benefits, the fun and the o

Last year was an incredible year for British Naturism. We reached membership milestones, engineered a breakthrough with the police, saw a record turnout for GBSD, enjoyed new events, gained new venues and massive media coverage, kicked off a new strategy process, appointed a new Volunteer Co-ordinator and developed our YBN community. Phew! But, let’s be honest: last year’s success is last year’s news. At BN we’re all about looking towards the future which is much more exciting because toget

“We're going to a restaurant tonight,” we told our friends.  “That's nice,” they replied. “We'll be naked there as well,” we said “Naked, and it's January? You must be completely mad!' Little did they know that we were actually going to a lunatic asylum. Well that's what it was originally called when it opened in 1860 but its name was quickly changed to the more acceptable Fairfield Psychiatric Hospital. This was the latest destination in Hertfordshire found by Robert and Pau

Ron O’Hare reports on success at Lancashire Sun It seems a long time since the days of letters arriving requesting day visits, later progressing to dial-up internet and now superfast fibre broadband, but have we all moved with the times? Speaking as Membership Secretary of Lancashire Sun - and not pretending to be an expert - I have to ask myself and others if we are taking full advantage of modern technology and the devices/systems now available. The invention of Smartphones has made

Now open for booking! We've been beavering away behind the scenes with our sponsor and travel partner Chalfont Holidays to put together a full, exciting schedule and are now delighted to bring you all NINE Members' only Holidays for 2019.  Travel with us and a group of like-minded people to Austria, Spain, Croatia, Rhodes, Lanzarote, France and Corsica. The programme includes old favourites and new venues. There is even the opportunity to enjoy two group venues in one trip! Check

This weekend we were back for our annual Alton Towers take over at the Splash Landings Hotel & Waterpark. Almost 400 Naturists descended on the themed aquatic playground for a full weekend - the waterpark was open throughout and there was an excellent line-up of daytime activities and evening entertainment. The Alton Towers weekend is a special BN member only event attracting a good mix of families and friends plus plenty of new faces too, from all over the country. Entertainment thi

BN Members from all over the country will descend on Alton Towers' Splash Landings Hotel and Waterpark later today for our annual naked winter weekend. Around 400 guests are expected, including families and people of all ages.  Activities include live bands, disco, comedy, body painting, exercise classes, quiz and life drawing. We'll be raising money for Children in Need - that's Pudsey Bare... Chalfont Holidays will be launching the new BN Members' Holidays for 2019 and a Caribbe

Things are continuing to move forwards very nicely with regards to the great attention Naturism is being paid in the press recently, and The Telegraph’s ‘A nudist’s guide to body confidence’ by Anna Clarke based on interviews with BN members, is no exception. The piece, focused on the intersection of body confidence and Naturism, is another straight-talking and genuine slice of journalism eschewing sensationalism in favour of open-mindedness. Being naked, the author argues, is actually quite fas

In October the 16 swimmers in the BN Swim Team and their supporters set off to Le Havre, France to represent British Naturism at the 47thINF-FNI Swimming Gala. Swimmers range from age 10 upwards and the races are organised by age group as given in the INF-FNI Sports Rules. There are over 100 races during the event and it is kept on schedule by the INF-FNI Sports Officer and the German Swimming Association officials. The races are divided into four strokes and male/female plus relays. Medals

8th – 15th July - Thorney Lakes, Somerset  One of the highlights of the Naturist calendar for many is Nudefest, a week-long camping festival held at Thorney Lakes camp site in Somerset.  Over the past few years Nudefest has gone from strength, now attracting over 400 Naturists from all over the UK. The huge site allows for all accommodations from humble tents to monster RV’s and motorhomes, an annual Naturist community in the beautiful Somerset countryside. Nudefest is all about g

About 40 BN Members gathered in El Portús for the Autumn Group holiday - organised by Chalfont Holidays - our second trip to this popular Spanish resort this year. Many guests opted to arrive earlier or stay later than the ‘official’ seven day group holiday. It really was ‘fun in the sun’ as the temperatures stayed high every day.  Gentle ‘detox’ music could be heard on the terrace as the few early risers attended a wake up stretch with the backdrop of the sunrise glowing red on the coasta

Did anybody catch Coran Elliott’s article regarding the growth of BN’s membership in The Telegraph this weekend? The article is just one of a growing number of positive pieces regarding naturism and the fact that public nudity is becoming increasingly more socially accepted and openly acknowledged. Indeed, the journalist’s approach to the story is itself indicative of the maturity with which the topic is being treated. The focus of the article concerns the growth in BN membership figures –

A YBNer’s first time running the BH5K at the Naturist Foundation It's early Sunday morning and I'm already in the car and a few minutes into a sat-nav defined 35-minute journey south. Having driven this route before I know that the sat-nav is not being entirely honest with me. I live in central London so navigating the traffic, road works, pedestrians, cyclists, traffic lights and whatever else will take me a good amount of time. Those 35 minutes, I know, will have become 85 by the time I

Many of you will have read the fascinating report last year confirming that being naked makes us happier, or heard the recent radio documentary about the benefits of nakedness.  BN's own Children Deserve Better report published in 2016 was itself based on extensive Naturist research. Those are just a few recent examples of academic research into Naturism, and the invariable results – that Naturism boosts self-esteem and body image – come as no surprise to us! Did you know that the global Na

The 'State of the Nation' talk, given by outgoing Chairman, Judith Stinchcombe at last weekend's National Convention Membership Membership success, hooray! it’s finally growing. Our total is up almost 6% on this time last year, with new member numbers up nearly 10%. It’s not happened by accident, we’ve been working hard over many years to get the right membership benefits in place, working hard to make people realise what we do and how ALL Naturists benefit, and working hard to ma

Fans of dining au naturel take note: Dine Naked Bristol are back after a summer break. Their fifth food-in-the-nude event this year will involve them taking over The Cauldron restaurant in St Werburghs.  The event, on Friday 12 October, will have upwards of 35 diners tucking into a cheekily-themed four-course feast. The evening’s menu begins with an amuse bouch of ‘well hung cheese’ (home cultured cow’s milk cheese, hung for 8 hours in cheese cloth, smoked salt and salted cucumber). T

This weekend British Naturism hosted it's first Woodland Weekend overlooking the banks of Windermere, and what a great weekend it was too! People travelled from all over the UK to attend this 'back to basics' camping event at Fell Foot Wood. Fortunately the met office made a complete hash of predicting of the weather and it was much better than promised. You could tell that Autumn was fast approaching but there were still plenty of chances to strip off, be it the cosy warm barn with the roa

It's not often we get to follow in the footsteps of Time Team but that's what happened to a group of us at Colne Priory this year. When Paul and Gill, BN members in Essex, invited forum members to visit their home near Colchester I didn't really know what to expect. We turned up on one of the many blissfully hot weekends that we had this August. Turning into the grounds we realised that we were next to a rather magnificent 18thcentury manor house with really interesting features. About twen

Following the success of BN's work securing College of Policing guidelines for Naturists in England and Wales, I decided as SANER Campaigns Co-ordinator to build on the good relationship we have built with the Scottish police and try to bring about similar changes in police practice.Police Scotland are a single authority which covers the whole of Scotland, and historically attitudes have been fairly conservative towards nudity. Edinburgh is the only city in the UK where world naked bike riders h

STOP PRESS The Thursday 8th November date has been changed from a female only audience, and is now open to couples or singles of any gender identification for booking. Following the success of the clothes-optional theatre production of 'Hair' last November at The Vaults theatre in London, we are delighted to be able to publish details of two further clothes-optional nights. The show is called Divine Proportions which, we are told, is an 'opportunity to wine, dine and celebrate lif

For the last six years Torbay Sun Club have organised an annual boat trip from Exmouth. This year, after weeks of glorious sunshine, it took place on the weekend the weather returned to a normal English summer. It was therefore on a somewhat brisk evening that we set sail into the sunset. The boat had a promenade deck as large as the lounge below but it was only the brave or hearty who stayed on the upper deck for long periods as it was a little "nippy" in the breeze. The cruise sailed up t

British Naturism is an organisation run and managed by volunteers. We pay a few people to devote time to ensuring that specialist areas of our operation run smoothly and that value members receive for their subscriptions is kept high. Day to day, however, it is people giving their time and energy for the love of it that makes things happen from the senior echelons of the Executive Committee to the people who run sessions at events. We acknowledged a while ago that we need more volunteers an