Curtain up on Calendar Girls in Burton

Tonight is opening night of Little Theatre Company's production of Calendar Girls - and among the break-a-leg messages is a special one from Tim Firth who wrote the play.

You may remember we told you about Bethan Waite (who plays retired school teacher Jessie in our production) meeting Tim last October at the Frodsham Literature Festival - if you want a reminder of that story - CLICK HERE.

Well, today he's sent us a message via a mutual friend to say: "I hope they have a great week. Tell them to let me know via my website if they have time!"

So, despite last minute nerves, the girls will be stepping out bravely with a spring in their step at The Brewhouse in Burton-on-Trent.

Pictured above: left to right: Hannah Mason as Celia, Vanessa Birch as Cora, Heather Ratcliffe as Chris, Bethan Waite as Jessie and Elaine Pritchard as Ruth.

Two Calendar Girls struck down by Puppy Love

It's been an exciting week for two of our calendar girls - mum and daughter Elaine and Caitlin - who had a surprise meeting backstage with Donny and Marie Osmond after watching their show at Birmingham's LG Arena.

On Twitter, Marie had invited audience members who 'followed' her to tweet her their seat number about half an hour before the show started - and Elaine did.

She was shocked speechless when about three number into the show Marie announced from that stage that the winner of her Twitter competition was Elaine.

The pair were ushered out of their seats in block 14 and taken to the two seats in the middle of the front row where they watched the rest of the show. They were given a backstage tour at the show's interval and afterwards met Donny and Marie for pictures, autographs and a quick chat.

Elaine was a MASSIVE Osmonds fan in the 70s and has seen most of their recent UK tours since 2007. She is still recovering from the shock.

Marie tweeted the picture of her with Elaine and Cait to her 87,885 twitter followers and also shared Elaine's comment that she was glad she'd been moved to the front or she wouldn't have seen Marie's fabulous shoes! Fellow Calendar Girls will know Elaine does love shoes! (Sadly, she herself was wearing practical and rather ugly sensible trainers on the night to cope with the ice in the arena car park).

Elaine (Miss January on our calendar) plays 'Ruth' in our March production of the play Calendar Girls. Caitlin appears in the calendar's December group shot and plays 'Elaine' in the show.

If you are a fan of Twitter, you can follow Elaine at @Ellajp and the Burton Calendar Girls @LTCCalendarGirl

Burton Calendar Girls launch - a great success

We were thrilled with the success of our launch day - 10% of all our calendars were sold!

It was a busy, exciting and slightly exhausting day at The Brewhouse yesterday where we sold our calendars form 10 am to 10pm.

It was great to see so many people and chat to them about our project. Thanks for all the lovely messages of support we had on Facebook and Twitter from local businesses - and local figures such as our MP Andrew Griffiths and Lymphoma Association fundraiser Ian Leech.

We're now re-grouping and working out the best way to offer calendars for sale inbetween various special events we have planned.

We will be selling them throughout the week of Little Theatre Company's production of The Sound Of Music in November, and before that we'll also be selling them at local business networking groups that some of our Calendar Girls belong to - including Burton Business Club, the Burton Women In Business Network group and Women in Rural Enterprises.

Keep an eye on this blog for more information about how and where to get your copy of the calendar.

Meanwhile, do enjoy this behind-the-scenes video, with footage shot by Elaine Pritchard at our June photoshoot and edited by Tilley Bancroft of Red Door Studios.

Meet our very own print evangelist

There was great excitement at 'Burton Calendar Girls HQ' when we signed off the final proofs of our calendar.

Our 'baby' is now in the very safe hands of Essential Print Services, a Derby company who have been very generous and helpful in offering us a great deal for our print run of 1,000 calendars.

Here's Tilley (our photographer and calendar designer) collecting the proofs from Laura (pictured left) of Essential Print Services.

Calendar girls Tilley and Elaine both know Yvonne Gorman - owner and print evangelist of Essential Print Services - from local business networking groups and knew she would be the perfect person to entrust to the vital job of printing our calendar.

Yvonne and her team are passionate about print and know how to get the best results whether you are looking for stationery, business cards, brochures, trade show banners, flyers and leaflets or personalised promotional items. A bit like our Tilley, Yvonne's enthusiasm for what she does is obvious within seconds of meeting her and we would thoroughly recommend asking Essential Print Services for a quote next time you need any printing done. When you see the finished calendar I'm sure you'll see why.

What a thrill

After speaking with Ian Leech yesterday we were thrilled to be able to see his Olympic torch and to have our pictures taken with it, it really is a beautiful design.

To carry an Olympic torch

Our Calendar is raising money for the Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research Association – which works to find cures for these blood cancers – but there are many other wonderful charities working in similar fields.

Today Elaine and myself met with Ian Leech one of the Olympic torch bearers. To be chosen to do this is such an honour and Ian was awarded this honour for his huge efforts in raising awareness for the Lymphoma Association

Ian lost his daughter Melissa in May 2008 to non Hodgkins Lymphoma at the age of 20. During Mel’s battle both he and Mel wrote blogs as a way of dealing with their battle and to raise awareness. Many people seem aware of Leukaemia but much less so with Lymphoma.  After losing his beloved daughter Mel, Ian put all his efforts into finding ways to deal with his loss and so his journey began.

Lymphoma is the 5^th largest cancer diagnosis and is most common in people under 30. The Lymphoma Association supports  anyone affected by lymphoma, friends, family and carers. They only deal with lymphoma and have an online site with forums and message boards for people who are looking for support and information.  Ian published a wonderful book in memory of Mel called “One day at a time- Mel’s story” and has his own website www.mad4mel.co.uk.

Ian explained that being  given the honour of carrying the Olympic torch has given him the opportunity to visit many schools and talk about why he was chosen. He has also been a key speaker at many events which has enabled him to spread the word more widely about the LymphomaAssociation. He also give his time generously to many other charities and has a cycle ride from London to Paris coming up which would have been Mel’s 25^th birthday.

We wish Ian every success in his future ventures to spread the word and make people more aware of the Lymphoma Association.

Almost there

Tomorrow afternoon Elaine, Tilley and myself will be meeting for what will be our final meeting before the Calendar goes for printing. The pictures have been taken, we decided who we need to thank on our Calendar, people who've given their time generously, Sheelagh who so magnificently made every one of us look so beautiful for our pictures, Elaine for her tireless work on our publicity and spreading the word.There are so many people that we're grateful to, Mike for his costume and prop contributions, Matt for his splendid lighting and helping to set up the theatre for us and Ken for his tea/coffee making. Most importantly we could not have done this without our wonderful Tilley, photographer extrordinaire, we cannot thank her enough for her tireless work in taking the pictures, her vision and patience and for all the work she's done since to ensure that we have the most stunning Calendar.

Tomorrow we'll check the proofs, make sure everything is in place and then we have to let our baby go to the printers. I know that we're all super excited to see the final product in its printed form. And so the next part of our adventure begins, we launch the Calendar on September 1st and our hopes for selling as many copies as we can to enable us to donate as much as we can to such a worthy cause. Now it's up to you, please support us and spread the word.
You can follow us on Twitter
'Like' us on Facebook and of course follow this blog for updates about the calendar and how to buy your own copy.

P.S: Here we are taking a final look at the calendar page proofs on Tilley's laptop. We're so pleased with the finished result.

Almost there

Having decided on the 12 shots for the Calendar, Elaine, Tilley and myself had a get together last Friday to decide on the final layout of the Calendar. Tilley has designed the most wonderful front cover and we decided that the back cover would be "dressing gown" shots of each of us as we were preparing for our pictures to be taken. We wanted also to make sure that we thanked everyone that we needed to thank, some very wonderful and generous people have given their resources and their valuable time to make this the best it could be. Briefly, Tilley, Sheelagh and Elaine but so many more people we're very grateful to. We know that the finished Calendar will be something we will all be very proud of.

We had also decided that it would be nice if every lady had a souvenir of their own picture, so in a couple of weeks time we're all meeting at Tilley's Red Door Studios where everyone can see all the pictures taken and choose which one they'd like for posterity. We're anticipating that that will be a fun night and afterwards we shall be visiting a local hostelry to raise a glass to a job well done.

And Miss January is.........?

What a difficult task Elaine, Tilley and myself had last week. As is the norm Ken was on coffee duty and my dining room was the scene of some serious deliberations. Tilley had all the shots she'd taken and our task was to whittle them down to a few and then choose the best photograph of each pose. You'd think that would've been fairly easy to do, no such luck, every single picture taken could've gone in the Calendar, Tilley's pictures were unbelievable, the difference that her terrific lighting made without doubt, made every single shot.

 To put everything on a fair playing field and so that Elaine, Tilley and myself didn't get to choose our own pictures, Tilley and myself chose the shot of Elaine, to see Elaine sitting there hugging a teddy bear with an excrutiating look on her face while the two of us picked over her shots was hilarious, too bad I didn't have my camera to capture that expression. Of course then Tilley and I had to wait with bated breath while Elaine chose our shot. Two hours later and after much deliberation we finally had our 12 amazing poses.

And so to choose who should star in which month, our idea behind this was largely taken to make the calendar as interesting as possible, to fit in each month so that it flowed nicely with the month before and so here is the final selection.

January           -     Elaine
February         -     Joyce
March             -     Katie,Jane, Chris, Dawn
April               -     Hannah
May                -     Karen
June                -     Jodie and Sarah
July                 -    Vicky
August            -     Sonja
September      -     Bethan
October          -     Carol and Tilley
November       -     Heather
December       -     The Girls

Afternoon tea anyone?

With just 10 days to go it was felt that we needed something to spur us on. Elaine, Bethan and myself have been to Langans Tea Rooms before and Bethan suggested that maybe a trip there for afternoon tea might just hit the spot.

Unfortunately, because of work commitments, not everyone is able to attend but quite a few of us will be there on Weds 6th June to partake of Langans excellent afternoon teas. For those who've never been there you're missing a treat, the food is delicious and plentiful and whether you're a tea  or coffee drinker you won't be disappointed in the choices.

Apart from the food the setting itself, Burton House, is a wonderful old building with many original features, either sit in one of the squishy sofas in the coffee area or gather round one of the many tables. Langans is a really wonderful place to nip in for a coffee, brunch a light lunch or even a Sunday roast. Hmmmmm now, carrot cake, eclairs or gateau? I'm going to have to give that one some thought.

tick, tock, tick, tock

The day of our photo shoot is looming ever nearer so now is the time to finalise our plans. Elaine, Tilley and myself are meeting on Friday to put the finishing touches to our plans and to firm up all the details. Elaine and Tilley have been busy with promoting and  deciding about printing our calendars, colour, black and white? Tilley has been sketching out poses for us and of course I'm not about to reveal those yet.  I've been busy gathering costumes and props together, as you will have seen from my recent trip to Mike's Tardis. Tilley's lovely husband Matt and the Brewhouse Technician has been roped in to help us set up on the day, I don't think he actually volunteered, but on the other hand I don't think he had much choice in the matter, trust me, Tilley is a force to be reckoned with. As for my other half, Ken, well he's on standby for Friday night to put the kettle on and slice the cake, we all know you can't have a proper meeting without tea and cake - right? I hope the ladies are starting to get excited now I know the nerves might be kicking in a little, we were all so gungho a few months ago but now it's time for us to stand up and be counted. I think and hope that we're all still inspired to be part of this wonderful venture, a once in a lifetime opportunity for us all to do something daring and truly worthwhile.

Let's get down to business

Now to organise the shooting and printing of the calendar. My very good friend Elaine, a fellow LTC member and freelance writer, approached our lovely friend Tilley Bancroft, an animator and photographer and asked if she'd be willing to do our photo shoot. Tilley is an amazingly talented lady and in true Tilley style was bubbling over with enthusiasm.

And so the three of us got together one evening to make plans. It goes without saying that there were copious amounts of tea and cake consumed.

We knew from the beginning that we wanted our theme to be a theatrical one so we talked through many poses, some inspired and some frankly too funny but we finally agreed on our 12 poses.

Elaine, being in the profession she is, had many brilliant ideas about publishing and promoting the calendar. Tilley and Elaine had already had chats with a local printing company and were to have further talks to determine the style of the calendar, how many to print and the finer details.

It was left to me to contact the Brewhouse to book the theatre auditorium for our shoot. No turning back now the date is set for Sunday 10th June 2012.

We'd decided that we wanted to be ready to launch our calendar in early September at the Little Theatre Company's bi-annual fund raising Playathon. And so, on cup of tea number three ( thanks to the expert tea brewer Ken, my other half) we had our initial plan of action. We were well on our way.