Thanks everyone who turned up to help us with Clean Up Australia Day Point Impossible 2010 – a good turnout again this year, a few more than last year which is nice (yes, it’s getting more popular every year, even when the weather is threatening!!). The weather was kind enough to hold off, we collected 9 bags of rubbish, and every year it seems there is a little less mess to deal with – a good result overall!

In particular, thanks to Dave for organising proceedings and getting the gear all together – a fine job In Rob’s absence (while Rob is enjoying the balmy conditions in the US currently!!). Also thanks to Jenni and Co for providing food and chats after the event, a tasty bite to eat rounded out a productive day!!

Thanks too goes to Mike Bodsworth from the Great Ocean Road Coast Committee (GORCC), who dropped down to have a chat and thank us for our efforts!! Mike also mentioned that it would be a great idea to revisit the “Friends of Pt Impossible” idea that was floated at previous community and council discussion forums – it’s certainly a good idea, one that we all support, but it would be most effective if we had more local beach users willing to step up and be active participants in this idea!!

The few of us who have been the most vocal and active supporters of the beach are not actually locals – at the beach fight workshops to save Point Impossible from closure, your beach was represented by two attendees from Melbourne’s South Eastern suburbs and one from Bendigo!! Come on Point Impossible beach users, we know there are a lot of you who are local!! And you don’t even have to be nude to participate – helping out on the clean up days, or planting days, all goes to show you are simply supporting a great beach valued by ALL users!!

There is a plan to do a tree planting some time towards the start of winter, to try and get some new trees established in the most damaged sections of the dunes – volunteers are needed to participate, it’s definitely a worthwhile way to spend a Saturday for the good of the beach and the environment!! Keep an eye out on this site, and the new Facebook group for further news!!

And don’t forget, CUAD will be around this time again next year, so keep your calendar free!!

Just a friendly reminder to everyone to get registered and come along to Clean Up Australia Day 2010 at Pt Impossible on 7 March – If you are user of the beach (or even if you aren’t), show some support for the community and great facilities and come along to lend a hand!!

We mostly work in the dunes, since the beach itself is usually quite neat, so you don’t even have to be nude if you’re not comfortable – if the weather is nice, usually a relax and chat happens after the hard work ends!!

Get along to this link and register with the CUAD site – we hope to see you there!!

That’s the headline on a recent article on The Age – and it is a very interesting read indeed!!

The big deal is coming clean about our intentions, accepting that the media only feed us what they think we want, and understanding that when we gorge on the headlines, we swallow an underlying social assumption that equates nakedness with a kind of perversion.

Some excellent observations well worth the read – and the reader comments are fascinating as always!!

You can check out the full article here

Stephen Gough has made quite a name for himself internationally, and keeps getting jail time for standing up for what he believes in!! We realise his story is a little off topic for us – after all, he believes in the freedom to be nude everywhere!! Nudists are all about the “nude” part, while Stephen appears to be focussing on the “everywhere” part – a subtle but important difference.

There’s quite a bit of hypocrisy about the Naked Rambler case – he can’t walk the UK streets nude, but BBC and Sky TV in the UK will happily show regular programs containing full nudity!! His plight has also highlighted all the subtle differences in the laws of different countries and territories. The real issue seems to be that society can’t deal with nudity in High-Def 3D (ie real life!), we can only tolerate it safely on the TV in SD 2D!! And so they keep beating Stephen with the conformance stick, because they know no different!!

Anyway, longest jail sentence ever (21 months), and apparently in the last 7 years has spent more time in jail than out for basically the same crimes (breach of the peace and contempt of court).

There are a couple of interesting articles about if you want to read more:
Metro UK article
BBC News

There’s also a Facebook group in support of his cause if you want to participate that way. And nudist champion Lady God1va has an article on her site as well, so check that out!!

Perhaps it’s the heat up there in Queensland? How else can we explain the flurry of articles about The White Cockatoo Resort up in far North Queensland? Tony Fox has never been shy of some media coverage, so it comes as no surprise that his announcement of a possible tell-all book around the same time as listing The White Cockatoo Resort for sale has got the media and nudist groups in a bit of a tizz!!

As stated in one of the Brisbane Times articles (refer below):

The timely free exposure hasn’t hurt their advertising campaign aimed at selling the resort for $1.5 million, with a flood of prospective national and international callers.

Traven Searle, President of Free Beaches Australia, said:

“Nudism for us is a lifestyle thing where we can socialise without any sexual connotations,” he said. “The whole thing up there (at The White Cockatoo) is very negative because it promotes a very sexual image.”

We’re not going to do any analysis on this one at all – just read the articles and decide for yourself!!

Check out last week’s article from the Brisbane Times: Click here

and today’s article is here: Click here