Tallahassee Naturally

Club History

In the fall of 1986, The Naturist Society was contacted about forming a new group. The name devised during that time was the “Tallahassee Bare-Devils”. Most gatherings occurred at local sinkholes and remote lakes.

In 1989, with numbers suddenly rising, we decided it was time to get organized. At our first annual business meeting, we formalized the leadership we had long recognized, with a five-member board of directors.

During Christmas break, the Florida Department of Natural Resources held a hearing on its proposed regulation outlawing even fashionable swimwear in state parks. We alerted our members by putting together our first newsletter. Nudists and naturists from around the state converged on Tallahassee to voice their objections. For the first time, Florida's feuding free beach groups, travel clubs, and landed clubs banded together. The coalition lasted 4½ years, and we were the hosts when it happened. That night, ASA (now known as AANR) executive director Arne Eriksen announced that we had been provisionally accepted into the national organization, with two years to get our membership up.

We had located a private lake that could be rented and entered a new phase as a semi-landed club in July 1990. Security was apparently what people had been waiting for. Membership leaped to over 60.

With the Olympics in Atlanta, we offered our first authentic Greek athletic meet for college students in 1996. It has continued to draw a small crowd every year since, as the only nude re-enactment of the ancient event in the world.

That summer, we opened Camp Tallasun for our young people aged 11 through 17. Besides cooking and swimming and canoeing, kids worked on rigorous merit-badge-type proficiencies such as camping, survival, nature, and birds. But the camp happened only once. By the next year, most of those kids had moved away or gotten paying jobs. We tried advertising nationally, but could not attract enough outsiders to keep the camp going.

In 1997, for the third time in four years, we successfully lobbied the Florida legislature to stop an anti-nudity law. Part of our strategy was the new booklet, Naturists: Upholders of Strong Family Values, underwritten by the Naturist Education Foundation, and published by our club. Five hundred copies of the first edition were distributed to state and local lawmakers nationwide. But a few months later, we had to rally support again when Florida representative Weldon lied on the floor of the U.S. house to prohibit the posting of signs on federal seashores that could inform the public where the nude beach areas begin and end. We lost that one.

We entered the age of the World Wide Web in 1998. That very first year our webpage won the Virtual Naturists Award.

The fall flowers had never been so beautiful. They served as a fine backdrop when FSU and Florida A & M University sent reporters to cover our student activities. Two college girls also wrote research papers on our club. One had been assigned to pick a group and blend in for a few weeks while gathering her information. She did.

In the summer of 2001, we hosted our first nude wedding on the grounds as new members Charles and Susan exchanged vows, with her son as best man. The minister wore only a T-shirt painted like a tuxedo, and he discarded that to join us in the water afterward.

Our Political Committee worked closely with Jefferson County officials to create what AANR executive director Erich Schuttauf called the best local nudity ordinance in the nation.

The June full-moon skinny-dip in 2002 turned out to be the most exciting ever. Students arrived to find five grass fires beginning to climb the trees, and a drunk who thought he was doing a wonderful control burn. Carrying lots of water from the lake, we got the fires under control (though they continued to flare up over the next three days). For the first time ever, we had to call the police to remove the firebug.

Also in June, we completed the five-year process of changing our name to Tallahassee Naturally. We were negotiating the purchase of land, but pulled back when membership and attendance failed to rise as expected.

In December, our first electronic newsletter was sent out.

Over the years, we have done many things right:

We have emphasized being natural in Nature, and have maintained high standards that brought us sophisticated and serious people.
We have thought for ourselves, creating innovative programs to serve local people, rather than trying to imitate other clubs.
Through student discounts and some activities aimed mainly at the college crowd, we have maintained a 10-to-15% student membership--reportedly the highest in the nation. We have frequently had a student on the board of directors.
We have maintained a member-run democracy, with decisions reached by consensus. By carefully delegating responsibility, we have kept experienced leaders from burning out, while constantly bringing newer people onto the board.
Through a balance of discretion and publicity, we have become an established and respectable part of the community. Most of the news media treat us seriously. And despite several years with a misleading name, we have experienced no trouble from self-righteous preachers or police.
We have kept good records--financial, attendance, membership, a scrapbook, and a newsletter long unmatched for incisive news analysis.
We have kept one foot firmly planted in each of the national organizations, and have maintained a full program of activities on both public and private land.
We have done our duty as citizens in the naturist community, whether in working to prevent bad laws, sending money to trouble spots, leading the two-year struggle to keep AANR open to all, or publishing our family values booklet.

Over the years, more than 45 people helped keep this a participatory democracy by taking their turn on the board of directors. Countless others have done wonderful volunteer work on committees or without titles. We cannot celebrate all these years of natural freedom without thanking the many people who have made it possible.