Some of the reform seeking members of the INF-FNI draped in the Thai flag at the Worrld Congress in 2018. From left Hector Martines, Disraporn Yatprom, Lins from Nick and Lins – this year representing South Africa – and Claudia Kellersch from AANR West.

The Word Congress 2020 of the INF-FNI (International Naturist Federation) takes place in Slovenia on Thursday 7 and Friday 8 October 2021. The congress should have taken place in the beginning of last year but has been postponed twice because of Covid-19.

The focus is on the presidential election on Friday or – if the debate drags out – on Saturday. The current president Sieglinde Ivo is running for her third re-election. She is challenged by Stephane Deschenes, the delegate for Naturist Association Thailand.

NAT is proud to have Stephane as our delegate. There is no doubt in our mind that if he wins the election the INF-FNI will be a more democratic organisation.

On Thursday, a major debate erupted over whether or not France should be allowed to vote. The French president had not signed up as a delegate because another member of her Board of Directors would attend the meeting and she expected him to represent France. The Executive Committee refused, however, to accept that. The other person was attending the meeting as EU Assessor and could as such not represent his country, they argued. The attempt to prevent France from voting – presumably against the current President, was supported by the President of the Legal Council, but since he was a member of the French naturist federation himself, he was not allowed to rule in the case. The question was therefore passed on to the Vice President of the legal council who took the opposite view to allow France to vote – but asked for his decision to be put to the vote. In this vote, an overwhelming majority supported France and accepted that the EU Assessor could leave the podium and take up the function as the delegate for France.

Later, another critical issue came up around the website of the INF-FNI which had been renovated for well over 1 mill Thai Baht. The critics asked, why the substantial contract had been given to the Hungarian company without a round of bidding and why the decision had been taken by the narrow three member Executive Committee alone and not by the Central Committee of the INF-FNI.

Naturist Association Thailand has proposed a number of proposals that are on the table for debate on Friday. The most far reaching is a proposal to form Non-European fund to support activities outside Europe, modelled over the same template as the current EUNAT. The proposal anticipates that the Congress will decide to make the member fee the same world wide and when that happens, part of the increase in payment to the INF-FNI from countries outside Europe will then be allocated a fund to be managed by the Non-European federations.

Another more practical is a suggestion to establish a committee to completely overhaul the statutes of the organisation.