In this Issue
- Plan to Attend the Nearby State Convention
- Attendance is Booming
- Tour the Sinkholes on the Fourth of July
- Come to the Open House on July 15
- AANR Convention Comes to Florida
- Trynudethon Plans Come Together
- Our Wish List Continues to Shrink
- Announcements
Days To Remember
June
- 01 - Full-Moon Skinny-Dip
- 10 - Board meeting
- 22-24 - AANR-FL convention, Suwannee Valley Resort near White Springs
- 24 - Picnic
- 29 - Full-Moon Skinny-Dip
July
- 04 - Sinkhole tour
- 7-15 - TNS Youth Camp, Sunsport Gardens near Loxahatchee
- 08 - board meeting
- 14-15 - National Nude Weekend campout
- 15 - OPEN HOUSE
- 29 - Picnic & seminar. Cliff will host.
August
- 03 - Full-Moon Skinny-Dip
- 6-13 - AANR Convention, Lake Como near Tampa
- 12 - Board meeting
- 26 - Picnic. Grant will host.
- 31 - Full-Moon Skinny-Dip & Back-to-school campout
September
- 01-03 - Back-to-school campout. Lake open Monday
- 09 - Board meeting
- 28 - Last Full-Moon Skinny-Dip
- 30 - Trynudethon, college activities, and picnic. Richard will host.
General Information
- THE LAKE IS AVAILABLE EVERY WEEKEND ALL YEAR.
- Families with children are especially encouraged to come on picnic days.
- Meetings and picnics usually start at 2:00. If both are on the same day, we start at l:00.
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Tallahassee Naturally is a non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of naturist recreation in north Florida and nearby areas. The club is an affiliate member of both the Naturist Society and the American Association for Nude Recreation. Bare and Free is the official Newsletter of the Tallahassee Naturally Club. Articles appearing in Bare and Free may be reprinted by other naturist publications, provided that credit is given. Photos, however, may only be reprinted with written permission. Club members are encouraged to submit , articles news items, and photos for publication. Please address all submission to: Tallahassee Naturally, P.O. Box 6866, Tallahassee FL, 32314 or info@tallahasseenaturally.org.
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Plan to Attend the Nearby State Convention
For the first time ever, AANR-Florida is holding its annual convention in north Florida. After board members look at their gas bills, it will likely be the last time. So this is probably your only chance to see what a state nudist convention is like. (Don't expect mobs of people, but a lot of meetings.)
The dates are Friday, June 22 through Sunday, June 24. If you want to spend just one day, most of the important things will happen on Saturday. The place is Suwannee Valley Resort near White Springs. Until April, it was a clothed campground, but the Bare Buns Bikers motorcycle club bought it out. Starting with a small pool, a hot tub, and a restaurant of some sort, it is probably the closest thing to a full nudist resort this side of Orlando.
Their rates are pretty steep most of the time. But for the convention, they have set a bargain rate of $10 per adult per day. Primitive camping is $14 per site per night. There is also a one-time $10 convention registration fee that goes to AANR-Florida. You may have to show your AANR or club card.
Events begin at 1:00 Friday afternoon, with an Outboard Meeting. (That is old state board members making their final reports. Most will defer their comments until the General Assembly.)
Then they are beginning the General Assembly a day early at 3:00 on Friday. (Usually, there is not enough business to fill even one day.) They won't get past committee reports.
At 6:00, there is a Meet 'n Greet with usually enough snacks that you don't need to worry about supper. At some point during the weekend, the political lobbyist will make a long speech.
On Saturday, the Regional Assembly is scheduled for 9 to 5, but will probably not last that long. Here is your chance to meet delegates from clubs around the state. Our club has one vote, but we consult with all of our members present before casting that vote. We have also been asked to cast the proxy vote of Sunsport Gardens, which shares our youth emphasis. The host club will probably sell sandwiches at noon. There are usually some sports competitions during the day, and entertainment at night.
Six o'clock Saturday is a restaurant meal for all who wish, followed by awards.
9:00 Sunday is the Inboard Meeting. (That is, meeting of the newly elected board.) New committee chairs will be announced. It will all be over by noon— plenty of time to get back to our club for our monthly picnic at 2:00. Members of three panhandle clubs have also been invited to stop by for the picnic on their way home.
Be aware that there is a problem with the policies at Suwannee Valley Resort. They will admit people under 21 just two days a year—once in the summer, and again at Christmastime. Children and our college students are allowed at the convention. An earlier run-down club in that same county used to refuse entrance to black people, even into the early '90s. We were once invited there for a meeting, but our leaders refused to go where all of our members were not welcome. After discussing the current situation, our board decided that the most effective way would be to encourage our members to attend the convention—but PLEASE speak up at the registration desk, and tell them you do not plan to be back until they change their policy.
Another odd policy there is that you can visit only three times, before joining at rates in the several hundred dollar range.
Directions:
From I-10, take Exit 292.
Go north on County Road 137. When it forks, stay right and continue for 2.6
miles.
Turn right (east) onto FL-136 E and go 3.7 miles.
Turn right onto White Springs Avenue, and get in the left lane.
Take the first left onto Stephen Foster Drive, and go half a mile to the park:
#786.
Allow 2 hours, driving from Tallahassee. Be aware that their web site
www.suwanneevalleyresort.com gives roundabout directions from
Jacksonville.
Attendance is Booming
With the addition of another large family, we are breaking all sorts of attendance records—including some that stood unchallenged for fourteen years. Forty-four people attended the April Full-Moon Skinny-Dip—breaking last June's record of 42.
Only four times in our history, have we received more than 200 visits a month. We did in August of 1998, when we had twice as many members as we do now. We even passed 250 in July 2009, when lots of newcomers flocked in for the first Guinness World Record Skinny-Dip. So we were surprised when attendance topped 200 in April. Then we did it again in May. Somebody is camping almost every weekend.
Tour the Sinkholes on the Fourth of July
The lake is not available on the Fourth of July. So it's a great day to celebrate your freedom, hike through the woods, and take a cool dip in half-a- dozen of the best sinkholes for skinny-dipping. You can learn more about them at www.tallahasseenaturally.org/sinkhole.html.
Because the sinkholes have grown more popular, we are reversing our route this year, so we can establish the dress code at the best sinkholes before others get there. Rick is leading the tour. You can contact him at 264-1808.
We leave at 10:00 from the Circle K at the intersection of Capital Circle SE and Crawfordville Highway (five minutes south of the main post office on S. Adams Street—which becomes Crawfordville Highway or 319).
Expect to walk four or five miles in all. Once you know your way around, you can go back to your favorites anytime you want.
Come to the Open House on July 15
We celebrate National Nude Weekend with our annual Open House Sunday, July 15. (This is a change from the date we had posted earlier.) Camping is encouraged on the 14th.
Dress code for the day is:
10 to 11 clothed
11 to 1 clothing-optional
1 to 4 nude
This is an election year. Political candidates will be invited during the clothed hour. This is your chance to chat with them one on one. We have met surprisingly supportive people from both parties this way. We especially urge our Florida members to come early and meet the politicians. Last time, nearly all of our early arrivals happened to come from Georgia, and we had few Florida voters on hand for the candidates to talk with. That was embarrassing.
Cookies, watermelon, and icewater will be available through the day.
Again, we hope that our couples can each sit an hour at the welcome table. See Paul to pick your time.
Even if you have looked through our club scrapbooks, you will want to look again. The missing volumes from the early years have been returned to the club, and we have integrated everything together now. There are lots of old pictures you haven't seen. Plus there's all the new stuff from this year's Greek Athletic Meet and 5-K run.
AANR is promoting the weekend as a time of body painting. If you have any paints, bring them along.
AANR Convention Comes to Florida
The AANR national convention also happens in Florida this summer—August 6-13 at Lake Como near Tampa. Important decisions used to be made, and officers elected, at AANR conventions. Now that those things are handled by mail ballots, we have no idea what they do to fill that week. Conventions have been far away in recent years. We hear that AANR has introduced some workshops and programs like The Naturist Society does at their gatherings, and we have offered to lead a couple of them. There's no word yet on whether they have accepted our offer. We plan to send a delegate for at least a few days.
Trynudethon Plans Come Together
When Steve joined our board this spring, he suggested another athletic event for the fall. Wendy mentioned bicycles. Since we already have great swimming facilities, we began thinking triathlon. Bouncing ideas off each other during the next month, Paul mapped out a challenging course. Rick suggested the name Trynudethon. Cliff knows how to order awards. We set a date of September 30.
For the last many years, we have elected a board of diverse people who think for themselves, yet who like and can get along with each other. The way this event came together is a fine example of how that process works.
Our National Nude Gardening project was a huge success. With the help of Jim's brush-cutting tool, we cleared the old swamp trail before noon. It's amazing what five old men and a woman can accomplish. Now it is possible to walk a loop out to the highway, across to the sandy field, and back to the main area. We suggest shoes on the newly-cleared trail, though you will probably want to take them off to wade through the waterlilies next to the field. The water is only about a foot deep—unless you step over the drop-off into the open water. Stay in the lilypads and you will be fine. Right now, the swamp trail is dry, but much of it is often under six inches of water. We plan to use the route as a challenging finish to the Trynudethon, and perhaps also next spring's 5-K run.
We are putting final touches our Greek Athletic movie. Watch for a world premiere announcement sometime this summer.
Our Wish List Continues to Shrink
Thanks go to Bruce and Kristy for the hoe, which we will use for marking lanes at the College Greek Athletic Meet. We could still use:
tools—broom, fork
a few more kitchen utensils
a few more good books
hand-held weights for Greek athletics
stop watch for the Trynudethon and 5-K race
Announcements
Nude & Natural includes coverage of our 25th anniversary in the current issue. And Holly will be our cover girl on the July Bulletin. Matt from TCC, our top athlete a couple of years ago, will share the front page. The newspaper is running an article on the Olympics, so they asked us for pictures. Bruce H. snapped both of them.
Don't forget our book sale of The World's Best Nude Beaches—a $26 value for just $10. Such a well-illustrated guidebook will probably never be published again.
Single men especially, remember the club in your will, or as the beneficiary of your life insurance. You can discuss this with Paul.