Two working groups are looking at ways to update and modernise the INF-FNI’s governing documents and its system of membership and financing
The INF-FNI has the main purpose of promoting naturism by supporting its federations and encouraging co-operation among naturists around the world. By working together, we can boost Naturism more effectively, learn from each other, and enhance the credibility of the Naturist movement both at national level and worldwide.
To achieve those principal goals, the INF-FNI has to have some basic structure as an organisation. In fact it is a legally registered not-for-profit association which, like any such association, has a system of governance and rules about who can be its members and how it is paid for. We recognise that this sort of thing is rather technical, and won’t be exciting to everyone, but it’s fundamental to the way our association works.
The statutes
The organisation is based principally on a set of statutes which were originally agreed in 1953. The statutes have been updated and amended many times since then, but unfortunately this has meant that over time they have become repetitive and in places ambiguous.
This was recognised during the World Congress held in 2021, and a working group was created to examine and propose updates to the statutes. The members are Hervé Begeot and Leslie Rabuchin, the two members of the INF-FNI’s Law Council, Harald Seiss (Austria), and Edwin Kilby (UK), the INF-FNI’s vice-president (Secretary).
An updated draft of the statutes and the rules for general assemblies was sent to the Federations for comment in July, with a request for comments by the end of September. The intention is that with the agreement of the Federations the new statutes will be adopted at the Congress due to be held in Mexico in October 2024.
The new draft includes a revised description of the purpose of the INF-FNI, updated wording in some areas (for example, “extraordinary members” become “associate members”, and “account-checkers” become “auditors”), and clarifies what should happen if things go wrong: it sets out a complaints procedure that would be overseen by the Law Council. There’s also a new section about conflicts of interest. The rules for general assemblies (also known as World Congresses), which deal with elections as well as procedure for such meetings, become explicitly part of the statutes.
You can read the latest version of the draft statutes and rules, with a commentary here (multilingual).
A Powerpoint presentation on the statutes is available here (English only).
Membership and financing
Meanwhile, a separate working group led by Christo Bothma (South Africa), the organisation’s Africa and Asia-Pacific advisor, is looking at the rules for membership and the way the organisation is financed. The other members of the group are Laurent Luft (France), the Europe advisor, Christine Kouman (Netherlands), and Nick de Corte (Belgium), known for the Naked Wanderings blog. They have been tackling questions such as what happens if there is more than one naturist federation in a country, and whether to extend the availability of extraordinary and associate membership in order to aid the startup of new federations in countries where at present there is none. Again, the group’s proposals will be proposed to-next year’s World Congress for adoption if the federations agree.
The outcome of these deliberations will stand alongside the system of QR codes designed to replace stamps – see the August 2023 edition of Focus.
A Powerpoint presentation on the work of the group is available here (English only).
Consultation
Both working groups presented their work during the 70th anniversary weekend. If there is interest from the federations we could arrange a videoconference during early 2024, before a motion for the Congress is published in the spring. Comments and suggestions from the federations are, of course, welcome.