Britains largest naturist organisation was created in 1964 when rivals The British Sunbathing Society and the Federation of British Sun Clubs agreed to join forces. The merged group was given the title The Central Council for British Naturism or CCBN for short.

These days the CCBN prefers to style itself 'British Naturism' or simply 'BN'.

For most of its existence BN continued to be a body which primarily represented the interests of its constituent sun clubs, despite the fact that 95% of its income was derived from individual members who had almost no say in how BN was run. In recent years some changes have been made to address criticisms of this and to allow individuals a greater role in decision making at the Annual General Meeting.

A "one member one vote" arrangement was introduced, with postal ballots for the election of officers and proxy voting for members unable attend the AGM. However, in 2005, only 12% of the membership voted in that year's election and fewer than 700 votes were cast for or against motions at the AGM

BN has a number of full and part-time staff, including a full-time Commercial Manager who was appointed in June 2004, but management of the organisation lies with the Executive Council, the equivalent of a board of directors.

BN's claim to be representative of naturism in Britain depends to a large extent of the number of naturists who are paid-up members of the organisation. Exact details of membership numbers is not something that BN has been particularly open about and public statements have apparenlty differed from internal figures. Despite the difficulty of determining precise numbers, critics of the Executive Council's management of BN maintain that it's membership is in long-term decline and that this decline has not been halted by considerable expenditure in recent years on professional promotion of the organisation.

NOTES

The figures given below have been compiled from a number of sources, including BN's own website, other public statements and documents 'leaked' to the public by members of the Executive Council.

Where possible, figures given are for the end of each calendar year (December) since BN's membership renewals all fall due at that time. Matters are complicated by BN's practice of including members who fail to pay their subscriptions ("lapsed members") in the membership totals for some months into the new year.

The totals are also thought to include 67 honorary members and press memberships - newspaper reporters and libraries who are given a complimentary membership so that they can receive BN magazine. In 2005 there were believed to be about 140 such 'members'.

The 1998 figure of 19,511 members was broken down as 15% single males, 1.4% single females 0.5% "administration" and 83.1% couples. At that time 97% of subscription income came from members and 3% from sun clubs. Total income was £211,000.

The figures contrast with the estimate for the total number of naturists in the UK derived from the 2001 NOP opinion poll of approximately 1 million. Details HERE

MEMBERSHIP NUMBERS

NOTES: [1] This figure was subsequently revised to 15,856 following 'computer teething problems' (BN Issue 166. p20)