Studland United Nudists 1999 AGM
Chairman's Speech - Edited Transcript
The AGM was held at the Holmcroft Hotel, Earle Road, Bournemouth on Saturday
6th November 1999 and was opened at 7.40pm by the Chairman, Mark Nisbet,
with 21 members present. The Chairman welcomed members to the AGM and gave the
following address:
Welcome to the fourth AGM of SUN Group. I intend to give only a brief report,
and to 'flag' things which can be picked up in the general body of the meeting.
Regular Board meetings have taken place as required by our constitution, as
have the monthly social gatherings at the Sir Percy Florence Shelley in Boscombe,
which are a genuinely enjoyable way of spending the first Friday evening. It
would be nice to see some more new faces; its nothing heavy, we don't spend the
time minutely dissecting beach politics, it's just a drink and a laugh. It would
be nice if more of you could manage to get along to one or more of these next
year.
Stalemate - National Trust have not
moved an inch
Overall, the situation on the beach has reached a sort of stalemate. The
Trust has not moved an inch, and they have made no effort to arrange a meeting
or to discuss any further our ongoing complaint about the restriction of our
traditional area. However they are well aware that we are still here and they
are cautious about making any further moves because they know we are quite
capable of mounting swift and effective resistance. Notwithstanding this,
stalemate is a less than perfect situation and we have some ideas that we will
put to the meeting later on, in the hope of moving things along.
Continued resistance
To sum it up
briefly, we can make the contentious Heather Walk unusable by textiles, and foil
the Trust's plans for it, by simply using it as part of our traditional area and
continuing to use it naked. By doing this, we are undermining their overall
control and their view that they can get away with taking away our traditional
area. We don't even have to be provocative about it - just carry on quietly
enjoying it. It might be that some members think there is something illegal
about this tactic, but there isn't. You should be relaxed about it, as indeed
Board members are, and you will find that if you quietly stand your ground and
refuse to be bullied or harassed, the Trust's employees will quickly lose
interest in trying to enforce the unenforceable. By actually being there, in
however small a way, you are achieving something. The quiet enjoyment of the
area, without confrontation, is what we all want, but we can't have that when
they are trying to take it away from us. It is, perhaps, a war of attrition,
which could go on for a long time, but if they see we are not backing down they
will be forced, eventually, to change their approach.
SUN acquired improved computer
During the year, the Board has made several key innovations. Without wanting
to become more bureaucratic, we have acquired an improved computer. There were
two reasons for this: firstly, the old machine was rather 'flaky' but we managed
to sell it at a price that made the purchase of the more modern machine quite
attractive. Secondly, the new computer, as well as making the routine office
work very much easier, enables Colin to compile the newsletter himself, thereby
taking a load off my shoulders which, with my increased commitments was becoming
progressively more intolerable. I would like to thank Colin for taking over this
task, and I think a round of applause is appropriate here. (Applause).
SUN advert on Sandbanks Ferry
Another significant thing is the SUN sign on the ferry. We waited a long time
for it, and when we finally learned at the beginning of April that we had been
given the space - at an annual rental of £82.50- we had some quite frantic
discussions about what sort of sign, what we should put on it and so on. We
finally settled on a painted sign and found a sign writer in Northbourne who was
able to produce a very good sign for just £105. We launched it in a blaze of
publicity, managing to get reporters, photographers and a Meridian TV news team
down to cover its unveiling. If anyone did not see the short news item, I do
have a copy in the archive and can easily copy it for you. Given that this is
the first time there has been any positive publicity for naturism displayed on a
public vehicle - which is essentially what the ferry is - we are extremely
pleased and proud of our achievement. Several people have criticised the sign
for being too small: I accept that criticism, but that was all the space we were
allocated by the ferry company - two feet square. We shall keep this under
review and perhaps, in a year or two, we might be able to persuade the ferry
company to give us more space for a larger sign, perhaps with a picture on it -
any suggestions as to what picture we might use will be welcome! Anyway, when
the sign appeared, there was no doubt of its significance: it sent ripples
through the naturist Establishment. CCBN, I know for a fact, were quite upset
that they had not thought of the idea first, and Craven Walker of Bournemouth
and District Outdoor Club was extremely miffed - we will come back to Mr
Walker in a moment.
SUN Telephone Information Line
One of the things that the sign publicises is the SUN telephone information
line. With
enough money in the bank to enable us to undertake some fairly hefty
expenditures, we were determined that we were not going to be like the National
Trust and hoard your money; we took the view that you, the membership, would
expect us to make good use of it and this is what we set out to do. The phone
line terminates in the Secretary's flat, is fitted with a good second hand
answering machine, and so far it has proved to be very busy. It probably hasn't
paid for itself, to be honest - although we can infer from application forms
that it has attracted some new members, it is impossible to say how many. Since
it was installed, there have been several calls a day and although not all the
callers leave their names and addresses, we feel that this form of direct
contact is very good and should be maintained. We are contracted to BT for the
first year of operation but we are actively considering changing to another,
cheaper service provider when that year is up, and we will undertake a full
review of the cost-effectiveness of the phone line after two years.
SUN Website
Some members have also suggested we go on the Net, and this is still under
consideration. We have had some generous offers from members to facilitate this,
and we are grateful for this level of practical support. We have had an e-mail
facility for some time now, and this is also advertised on the ferry sign: we
have a standard letter which is sent out to e-mail enquirers. All in all, we are
making great strides into the global communications arena and the Board will
continue to keep these activities and possibilities under close review.
SUN Action Days
We held two action weekends during 1999, which are reported below. The first
one, in June, was badly affected by the weather but the second was held in
August and was a very different affair: it was very successful, with a good
turnout. Riding high on the success of that event, we felt that we should make
it a really big event next year, and put all of our efforts into it. Although it
is at the end of the season, it is a kind of celebration and lets the Trust know
that not only are we still here, we shall be back again next year.
Although we had some good press coverage of the ferry sign and various other
things, we did not actually have any press coverage at all of the action
weekends. Whilst acknowledging that there may be many members who would prefer
to avoid publicity for themselves, the action weekend is primarily an effort to
draw attention to the group and to our ongoing quarrel with the National Trust, and we shall
be addressing the need to balance publicity for the group with respect for
members' individual feelings. We feel this is probably best achieved by
controlled press releases and we shall be giving considerable thought to
accomplishing this.
We have imitators - Craven Walker starts
Studland Bay Naturists
As our profile has increased through the ferry sign, the phone line, email,
mention on various websites, etc., we have spawned some imitators and this is
where Craven Walker of Bournemouth and District Outdoor Club comes in. He has been aware of SUN Group for some
time and it really gets his goat that our profile and numbers are rising while
his establishment remains moribund. He has started off his own organisation - it
may be the last gasp of a dying dinosaur - and he has produced a glossy leaflet,
seeking members for Studland Bay Naturists or SBN, part of what he calls the
Naturist Fellowship. This leaflet, to give him his due, has a nice aerial shot
of the beach taken from a helicopter. Leaving aside the grammatical, factual,
historical and biographical errors in the leaflet, what he is really trying to
do is to steal our thunder by appealing to the 'more moderate' factions among
the beach users, although I don't know how much more moderate you need to be to
meet with his approval.
Diametrically opposed - Studland Bay
Naturists happy to be restricted
Along with this leaflet, he is pushing out a roughly
photocopied letter which is quite offensive, calling SUN Group all sorts of
names. Now we don't want to get into a name-calling contest with Craven Walker
(even though we would probably win it), but he has started this other group and
his idea is that his Group actually negotiates with the National Trust. Their
basic premise is that they are happy to be restricted to a tiny portion of
beach, and they do not want to use the dunes - they do not like dunes as was
made clear by Walker's Supporter Rex Watson, editor of CCBN's house magazine, in
his infamous "razor wire" statement.
They are, therefore,
diametrically opposed to what we are trying to do, which is to re-establish the
entire traditional nudist area. I don't think we have too much cause for
concern, but we must be aware that in the field of propaganda, press publicity,
etc., Walker wields a lot of influence. However, readers of the Bournemouth
Daily Echo will be aware that he managed to get an article in recently,
promoting his new group, which backfired on him because the reporter who wrote
the story actually used photos relating to SUN Group to illustrate it, and the
only address or contact telephone number in the piece was ours! Furthermore, the
article, headed "Naturist beach to go global" conveniently forgot to
mention that Studland is already listed, and has been for very many years, in
the International Naturist Federation guidebook - as a free beach. The other
picture in the article was an archive photo of Walker with a previous wife from
about ten years ago - what his current, fourth wife thinks about that is not
reported! So if this is any indication of how Walker is going to proceed with
his new group, it is clear that he is either a very loose cannon or a complete
fool. Or both.
Morfa Dyffryn
beach has similar problems
It is also worth reporting that similar problems to those we are experiencing
at Studland are arising at other beaches around the UK: one Welsh beach, Morfa
Dyffryn, where the situation is very similar to what has happened at Studland.
Although we have not yet had a direct appeal from there for assistance or
information on setting up a beach group, we anticipate that such a request may
well come very shortly, and we shall do our best to help, because the parallels
with Studland are quite significant and we know that SUN members do use Morfa. I
think it is very important that beach pressure groups such as SUN share
information, because it is certainly the case that local authorities, the
National Trust,
English Nature and the police pool their information and experiences of what we
naturists are doing, and if one such authority can get away with a restriction
it will not be long before the others are trying it on as well. We have to meet
that challenge head-on, not simply for Studland and our own members but for
nudists everywhere who do not agree with the cringing, appeasing attitude of
CCBN and their cronies. We will be discussing at future Board meetings the
possibility of an alliance with other groups. If it happens, it will be on the
basis that they may be able to help us and we may be able to help them.
Conclusion - we are as healthy as we
were last year and growing
I will conclude by saying that in spite of the stalemate SUN group is as
healthy as we were last year. Our membership has increased by somewhere in the
region of 20%. Despite our heavy expenditure we have a reasonably healthy bank
balance, but we try not to hoard money unnecessarily. We feel that it is
essential that we spend, and spend wisely, the monies we receive from the
membership because if we are not doing that then we are not doing our job
properly. I would like to thank all the Board members for their very hard work
during the year, and give a special mention to Peter Dangerfield who, as
most of you are aware, has recently undergone major heart surgery. I would like
to wish him, on behalf of all the members of SUN, a speedy recovery and many
more years' enjoyment of our beach, dunes and heathland. I would also like to
praise our Treasurer, Sue for her diligent work keeping our financial
records straight - couldn't do it, all my financial paperwork gets thrown into a
big shoe box - while coping with Pete's illness, and our Secretary, Colin,
for all the work he has put in during the last year. Also, thanks to Julia
who is establishing herself as a beach "character" and last but by no
means least Trevor, whose ambition is to arrive on time for a meeting!
Apologies have been received from Board members Jan Welsh, who is
actually in Germany at the moment, and Chris Phillips who is also unable
to be with us this evening.
Thank you for your attention and your attendance, and I will now sit down and
have a drink. (Applause) |
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