Young British Naturists - YBN

As the long nights start to draw to a close, the Summer 2024 season is just on the horizon. Even though it doesn’t always feel like it, the days are getting a little warmer, and we can see a light at the end of the wintry tunnel. With that comes continued planning for YBN. 2024 is shaping up to be a busy year, building on the great successes and increased engagement of 2023. Over the last few months, we have finalised dates for five YBN exclusive club visits, including a ‘BBQ and Boardgames

This article appeared on 11th December 2017 I’m sitting in a room full of people I’ve never met before in my life. The last sun rays of the day are filtering through the windows in the roof, causing an ethereal glow above us. The floor is an exquisite mosaic of tiles and eight chairs are arranged in a hexagonal pattern around a fountain in the middle of the room. Unfortunately, there is no water, which would have been welcome given that the temperature in the room is almost forty degrees

A YBNer’s first time running the BH5K at the Naturist Foundation from 2018. Want to experience a naked run for yourself? The Nudefest 5k in September is open for booking  It's early Sunday morning and I'm already in the car and a few minutes into a sat-nav defined 35-minute journey south. Having driven this route before I know that the sat-nav is not being entirely honest with me. I live in central London so navigating the traffic, road works, pedestrians, cyclists, traffic lights and whate

BN are back in Blackpool for a three-night leap-year break from 28th February, returning to The Headlands Hotel and The Colwyn. The hotels are either end of the same crescent, only a 250m walk away from each other in South Shore - right next to the world famous Blackpool Pleasure Beach. Saturday night sees us at the famous Sandcastle waterpark - no costumes required! Entertainment is based in The Headlands Hotel and will feature a good mix of lively entertainment, quizzes and more... B

I’m sitting on the tarmac at Schiphol airport, waiting for the conga line of passengers to hurry up and take their seats. There’s a younger man to the left of me, clowning about on his phone. To the right of me, there is a joker, cracking puns to his friend and giving off a strong aroma of the local horticulture. I’m stuck in the middle of the usual pre-flight scuffles with the sad reality of going back to work after a sublime weekend with some of the YBN at Zuiver Spa in Amsterdam (“Zuiver” mea

Today, thousands of young people are pushing back against a society that tells them how they need to look and act to be accepted, with little regard for their own opinions.  One of the main culprits is social media, which tells us that we must be slender and toned, and that our own bodies must never be exposed, under any circumstances. In this article, Lili Thorpe talks about her own perspective on body image, and how her recent introduction to Naturism has opened her eyes to a better way to liv

Contrasts in Heaven by Edward Shearer I’m sitting in a room full of people I’ve never met before in my life. The last sun rays of the day are filtering through the windows in the roof, causing an ethereal glow above us. The floor is an exquisite mosaic of tiles and eight chairs are arranged in a hexagonal pattern around a fountain in the middle of the room. Unfortunately, there is no water, which would have been welcome given that the temperature in the room is almost forty degrees. The hum

An article in the UK’s version of the Huffington Post piqued our interest. It said, ‘We may open up conversations with our daughters about how they feel about their bodies, but when was the last time you did this with your son? The number of men admitted to hospital with eating disorders has risen by 70% in the past six years and male sufferers – and the people around them – may not recognise their symptoms due to persistent gender stereotypes. According to a survey 55% of 18-year-old boys surve

It has been a good summer for Young British Naturism (YBN) with success on many levels. Reorganisation of the YBN forum has provided the spur for many of us to come together and start making plans.  The launch of the YBN Whatsapp group by Mikey has made it much easier to exchange ideas and led to meetups at Clover Spa and other small-scale events. The real show stopper of the summer was the gathering at Waterworld to celebrate the end of Septembare and the Great British Skinny Dip. Officially, t

A sixteen year old girl tells us about her life growing up as a Naturist “... and everything was, like, hanging out, and we were so embarrassed.” She pauses and surveys our faces - my friends look disgusted, some are giggling, and others don’t know how to compose themselves in light of this shocking story. I’m not laughing. This is how people reacted to hearing that a friend of mine accidentally visited a Naturist beach abroad. They were laughing at the expense of the people going to t

As the weather has improved, the opportunities for all of us all to get naked have become more frequent, and the young members are no exception to that. The resurgence of YBN continues. The YBN forum has been reconstructed to make it current, rather than an archive and plans for future events continue – watch this space! The change in mood is already becoming evident. Events such as Waterworld have always appealed to the younger demographic and that was particularly true at the April Waterw

Young British Naturists’ (YBN) first event of 2014 was a weekend visit to Clover Spa. We publicised this on Twitter and Facebook with the aim of attracting young people that are interested in Naturism, but have never taken the plunge to come and join us and experience it for themselves in a friendly and relaxed environment where there is no pressure to get their kit off if they don’t feel comfortable. It was also a chance for them to meet the new YBN team, so Andy, Harriet, Paul, Simon, Tim and

We had all the usual fun and games putting the tents up and it was soon very clear who were the ‘seasoned’ tent-users and who was pretty useless. We must thank Jay without whom our GS rep would have been sleeping under a pile of canvas and poles – and no, Daryl; No matter how hard you try, a king-size airbed does not fit in a two-man tent.... From the moment that we arrived we were made to feel so welcome by the members of Diogenes and especially our brilliant organisers, Steve and ‘the Andys’

Martin Warrillow meets an inspiring ambassador for ‘new’ naturism. Most readers of this magazine have, of course, known it for years; naturists are happier than so-called textiles. We’re happier, more in tune with nature, with a better, more sensible and relaxed attitude to our bodies and the human body generally. Yet we’ve never been able to prove it, other than by encouraging people to try social nudity for themselves and see what happens. Well, now we can. For the first time, proper acade

We host events throughout the year from “The North To The South and The East To The West”, to make sure that our YBN’ers can get to an event that’s near them, as-well as at least one event abroad, to meet all the international youth groups! We also attend many BN and club avents as well as arranging own own get-togethers amongst ourselves. All of our events are at a minimal cost; as nearly all of us are skint and penniless… But the fun that can be had at these events costs nothing! And let’s f

You only have to open a newspaper or turn on the television to be exposed to unrealistic and unachievable images of the human body. This can have a major negative influence on a child’s sense of wellbeing and self-confidence. Figures show that eating disorders and body image issues are on the rise; unfortunately children can believe that the images that they see in the media are what their body should look like. And it can have devastating effects upon them. It is not easy for a child to grow

If you are aged 14-17 you will need your parent/guardian’s permission to join in with any part of YBN; this includes coming along to our events and having full access to the YBN message board. You would need full permission that is signed on a youth consent form; especially if you want to take part in any of BN’s youth group events & activities. Your parent/guardian is more than welcome to come along with you to our events, as your legal guardian. When you are 18 you can join as a full

In terms of your concerns about erections, you are not the first to be worried about this; nor will you be the last. I hope that I am able to put your mind at rest with the following information. I have been a Naturist for a long time and YBN has many members that are completely new to Naturism and to being naked socially. Nearly all of the members have shown the same concern about getting an erection when they first joined. However when it comes to the crunch of making the step into 'publi

Puberty is a name for the time when you start to change from a child to an adult. Puberty is normal and it happens to everyone. You may be looking forward to puberty, or dreading it! Or you may feel both ways about it! You’ll go through a lot of changes, but you will still be YOU, just with some important differences. Try to think of it as one of the great adventures of your life, because it is. In terms of Naturism when you are going through puberty; there is nothing to worry about or to b

If you have concerns about your body image then you are just the same as nearly everyone else before they tried Naturism. You are certainly not the first to be worried about your body shape or size or the way that you look in general; nor will you be the last. I hope that I will be able to put your mind at rest with the following information. I have been a Naturist for a long time; YBN has many members that are completely new to both Naturism and being naked in a social setting. Prior to coming

Youthful energy driving us on! This summer we have been here there and everywhere, travelling around the country having fun in different places. Many clubs have invited us to join in with their summer festivities and allowed us to host YBN weekends; as always, we have to choose only a few of them to attend, this year being Manchester, Heritage, Nottingham, Spielplatz, and Ashdene, while we also have the volleyball tournament to look forward to in a few weeks. We’ve partied with fancy dress di

This year’s INF rally was held in a stunningly beautiful naturist club in the south of France. Being June and given what the weather man had told us all, who would have thought it would rain all week, yet be the hottest day of the year in most other federations’ countries? Nevertheless, fun was had by all and even more friends were made this time round. The theme for the week was ‘create’ with classes on drawing, music and massage. Anyone was free to join in with the activities and take advant

We arrived to a warm welcome from the people at Heritage who helped us sign in before we desperately requested to know the direction of the bathroom – after an epic journey of all of 45 minutes! Once all the tents were up, we headed to the pavilion for a night of karaoke. A lot of the crowd from YBN and the club were already up there. The drinks and conversation started to flow, with a few brave souls volunteering to sing (some being put up by “friends”). Soon there was an excellent rendition o

Once again, our lovely friends at Telford Naturist Club helped get the summer off to a great start – and this time for an extra special reason, our 10th birthday. We always love going to Telford, getting a warm welcome from the club and really enjoying ourselves. For the special celebrations we’d invited lots of ex-members and people who had helped to make YBN a success – and so there were people of all ages. It was great to meet past friends and, as usual, people enjoying their first YBN event

It’s hard to believe that YBN is ten years old already! What started out as a way of meeting a few other young naturists has turned into something much bigger, writes Ben Rose. It doesn’t seem that long ago that the first flyer was being sent out asking if anyone would be interested in joining a naturist group for young people – a group which didn’t have a name or any real plan as to how we were going to develop. The idea was that we would get as many people on board and, between us, maybe we