Guide On How To Run A Nudist Park From The 1980’s

[NudieDaniel]

Read A 1980’s Nudist Park Management Guide

Let’s take a trip back in nudie time to the 1980’s … a far more prosperous time for the nudist industry. Many nudist clubs were succeeding and growing. It seemed like an opportune time to open a new nudist club or resort.

Of course, being in a pre-Internet era, people had to rely on books and other sources of information about starting a nudist business or co-op club.

One of these sources was: a printed “Guide To Nudist Park Management” by Jim Hadley and Bernice Goldberg.



We’re not 100% sure when this booklet first came out. That said, the early 80’s, sometime between 1978 and 1986, is our best guess.

This guide to nudist park management is 53 pages long. It was typewritten and bounded together by a metal clasp – Oh the days before everything was cheap plastic!

It seems that in 1986, the authors made it into an actual 86 page hardcover book. It was printed by the American Sunbathing Association (present-day AANR). But we’ve never seen the book and know little about it.

In the introduction there are short bios about its authors, Jim and Bernice. Jim and his wife Lyda founded Cypress Cove Nudist Resort in Florida in 1964. Cypress Cove is still being run today as a big resort and successful family business. (Strangely he doesn’t name his own resort in the bio.) He also wrote articles for nudist magazines and was obviously very involved in the nudist community and ASA.

The nudist park guide offers some insight into what was happening in the industry back then. Some sections consist of basic information that would apply to any business, such as how to set up a business, do bookkeeping, legal considerations, etc. Other sections are more specifically about nudist resorts.

Though some things have changed and some haven’t, much of the advice given here would still apply today. In fact there are nudist resorts that would benefit from hearing some of it!

For example, the guide tells potential club owners that there is “no need to hide in the woods.” They should make themselves easy to find and put a sign on the road. Well, wouldn’t you know, we still get lost trying to find clubs that are still essentially hiding in the woods.

As you can see in the “Nudism Within The Law” section, one of the pertinent issues for nudist clubs at the time was the illegal practice of charging single men a higher entry fee than single women. Some clubs were sued for discrimination in the 70’s, so the authors strongly advise against doing this.

But as far as policies and memberships go, they generally avoid telling clubs what to do. Instead, they try to present options, and this is where the “Membership Screening” goes into a murky area:

    “…in the light of constantly changing social values, it is important to examine your own views and prejudices. A club owner or manager has to come to terms with himself and what he can live with, but he also has to consider the makeup of the membership in order to determine what would be acceptable to it. Then both considerations must be weighed against what is good and bad for the business. Consideration, for instance, must be given to the word “couple”. Does this apply only to heterosexual married people. What about the couple that is not married? Unmarried couples shift and change and with knowledge of their status you may want to give a membership to one while the other retains the right to be a non-paying “guest” for the duration of their relationship (or membership!). What happens when a couple divorces…who gets “custody” of the membership?”

This fretting over unmarried couples sounds pretty silly today, but what about the “heterosexual” part? Are they condoning a policy of only permitting heterosexual married couples to join? Or is it an ill-considered way of asking people to consider their “prejudices”? We don’t know how many clubs officially (or unofficially) didn’t allow LGBT people back then, but sadly have no doubt that some didn’t. Sadder still is the fact that some clubs may still be practicing similar forms of prejudices today.

On a lighter note, the ASA conducted general surveys of nudists in the 70’s. The excerpted answers in Appendix III are also interesting. When asked about their occupation, the greatest percentage answered “housewife,” and 54.3% were over age 50.

The booklet is fun to look at and can be read in its entirety below. (All misspellings and underlined words are replicating the original.) You can also click here to read the original pages in a PDF format.

[As a side note, there’s a mention of “Family Jungle Ball” as a sport under “A look at facilities.” Anyone have any idea what this is??]

Read more
http://youngnaturistsamerica.com/nudist-park-management-guide-1980s/