July
- 7 Full-Moon Skinny-Dip
- 15-16 National Nude Weekend campout
- 16 OPEN HOUSE and Board meeting
- 22 Sinkhole trip
- 30 Picnic and seminar. Cliff will host.
August
- 4 Full-Moon Skinny-Dip
- 6-13 75th AANR Convention, DeAnza Springs in California
- 13 Board meeting
- 27 Picnic. Richard will host.
September
- 2-4 Back-to-school campout
- 4 Lake open Monday
- 8 Full-Moon Skinny-dip
- 9 World Naked Gardening Day
- 10 Board meeting
- 24 CLUB 20TH ANNIVERSARY. Picnic and recognitions
| 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 To the Editor, 502 Airport Drive, Tallahassee, FL, 32304 or smithj7@peoplepc.com. 
|
Come to the Open House July 16
Celebrate National Nude Weekend at our Open House on Sunday, July 16 (not July 9 as previously announced). Admission is free. The dress code for this one day is:
10-11 clothed
11-1 clothing-optional
1-4 nude
Political candidates have been invited during the first clothed hour, and confirmations are starting to come in. (Of course you don't want to wear clothes, but come out and do it for one hour just to show the politicians how much you care.) This is your chance to meet with them and share your concerns.
Light refreshments, volleyball, badminton, darts, horseshoes, and hiking the nature trail will be available all day--in addition, of course, to swimming and other water activities.
If you are interested in camping over Saturday night, speak up, and others may decide to join you.
We Get Lots of Publicity
Our club has gotten lots of publicity lately among the national nudist press. The current issue of Nude and Natural contains several articles on attracting college students. Since our club leads the nation in this, one article quotes Ella and Paul extensively. The July Bulletin also briefly quoted Paul on this topic, but left out all the main points on how to do it.
In June, AANR produced its 75th Anniversary Bulletin. Ours was one of only seventeen clubs whose history was printed. And we snuck in a little more of our history at the back in the "Club Happenings" section.
At about that same time, AANR and The Naturist Society distributed to all clubs nationwide our brochure, "How Naturists Evaluate and Elect Good Political Candidates."
FANR Celebrates 15 Years
Not only is this the 75th anniversary of AANR and the 20th anniversary of our club, but the Florida Association for Nude Recreation celebrated 15 years at the June convention at Cypress Cove. Paul represented our club. As one of the few FANR founders still active, he told the group some amusing stories about the way it all began.
Lots of clubs showed up this time because there were two controversial proposals on the agenda: to change the FANR name, and to make this the last convention. Our board felt that both proposals had not been thought through carefully--and, sure enough, both were sent back to committee. We expect them to return in modified form next year.
(We hesitated to end conventions while AANR experimented with its first member mail-in ballot. Those results have just been announced. Fewer that 8% of members voted nationwide. Granted, only two of the positions had any competition. But in both cases, new female faces beat out very experienced male leaders.)
Using the old delegate system, FANR also elected some enthusiastic new leaders.
The Library Goes Digital
The American Nudist Research Library on the grounds of Cypress Cove is about to scan their entire collection. They plan to store the discs at multiple clubs around the country--thus minimizing the risk of destruction by fire, hurricane, etc. Details are still being worked out to make older magazines available online to serious researchers. Read more about the American Nudist Research Library's digitizing project.
All of this costs money--an estimated $80,000. Our club sponsored a resolution at the FANR convention to earmark $5,000 of next year's budget for this project. Individual contributions of any amount are being gratefully accepted. You can mail your check for this good work to:
ANRL 2850 Sun Cove Drive Kissimmee, FL 34746
Sinkhole Tours Resume July 22
For thousands of years, people have skinny-dipped in the many beautiful sinkholes south of Tallahassee. In the 60s and 70s, some of the sinkholes attracted hundreds of skinny-dippers on hot summer weekends. Our club used the sinkholes extensively twenty years ago, before we started renting our present lake. The Full-Moon Skinny-Dips continued at the sinkholes for many more years.
Then St. Joe Paper Company, which owned much of the land, went out of the paper business, and into the land development business. To wean the public off from the places they had always enjoyed, the company leased thousands of acres to a hunting club, which blockaded all trails and put up No Trespassing signs. The hunters also blocked all trails leading to the public sinkholes in the Apalachicola National Forest. Instead of demanding public access, the forest service closed their Wakulla office, since nobody could now get onto the public land.
A few years ago, the paper company sold much of that land to Wakulla Springs. The No Trespassing signs have come down. State Park officials make it clear that hikers are welcome, but automobiles, swimmers, and certainly nude swimmers are not. But this also means that we can once more hike to some fine sinkholes in the national forest. That pretty much limits them to daytime use.
The trails have become so overgrown that we are having trouble finding some of our old favorite places. But we have found at least one safe and beautiful pond that we were not aware of before. The National Forest Service has no anti-nudity regulation, except in very public posted areas.
To discover these natural treasures, check with Paul to arrange a meeting time and place on July 22. Call (850) 222-1886, or write paullevalley@peoplepc.com.