THE NATURIST LEGACY FILES

President's Message: Dreaming A Dream, Building A Legacy

I'm going to speak briefly to you today about dreams and legacies.

A very wise man long ago wrote, "If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them" (Henry David Thoreau).

In other words, dream big dreams. That can be a good and noble thing, but don't stop there. Your dreams will have no permanence unless you also build real and lasting foundations to place under them.

Sadly, the lack of a permanent foundation is why the dream of Crocus Grove's founders failed to become their enduring legacy. It's also why landed social nudism in Manitoba was so severely threatened and nearly lost in 2010.

Naturist Legacy Park is now our dream, and it's a big dream, too! This time, though, our dream will endure. It will endure because we have put a solid foundation under it. That foundation is our non-profit corporation, Naturist Legacy Incorporated.

Both the word and the idea of legacy appear in our corporation's name. That's deliberate. The word legacy is defined in the dictionary as "something handed down from an ancestor or a predecessor or from the past." It denotes something of permanence and inherent worth. This word in our name is meant to always remind us of our heritage, our purpose and our destiny.

Our corporation's mission is to provide continuity and stability and endurance for landed social nudism in Manitoba. That mission is our present and our future. That mission will create our legacy.

Listen to this quote: "Ultimately, if you really want to live a remarkable life in a conventional world, you'll want to do something worth remembering. Live your life out loud. Follow a big dream and find a way to contribute something at the same time. If more people lived their lives in pursuit of a legacy, I think the world would be a better place" (Chris Guillebeau).

Naturist Legacy Park is the "big dream" shared by us in this room. Most of you have contributed something towards the realization of that dream. Some of you have contributed sacrificially and deeply from the heart. I firmly believe that our part of the world will indeed be a better place because of what we're building together. What we're doing is both a "now" and a "forever" proposition. We can live in and enjoy our naturist park today, but we can also proudly leave it as a legacy for future generations of nudists.

Pursuing big dreams and building enduring legacies requires the active and passionate support of many people. Naturist Legacy is a volunteer-based organization through and through. It is "grassroots" to its very core. We have no expectation that "someone else" will build our dream and our legacy for us, nor should we. We must be prepared to do this for ourselves, and I am confident that we shall.

Together, we have constructed a solid foundation. Together, we have started to build our shared dream on that foundation. We have made an excellent start, as evidenced in the pictures of our progress that were shown before the meeting. Much remains to be done, however. We must finish our work.

I want to conclude by encouraging you all to help complete what we've started. I encourage you all to help build a remarkable legacy worth remembering in this otherwise conventional world!

John Kundert
President, Naturist Legacy

SOURCE: This President's Message was delivered at the 2011 Annual General Meeting of Naturist Legacy Inc. on November 27, 2011. Check out the 2011 Photo Galleries to see what was accomplished during this ambitious year of construction and development.

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