That's all folks

Well, two years after the idea first emerged to create our own Calendar Girls-style charity calendar we have wound up the fund and handed over a final cheque for £2,560.39 to the Midlands Chairman of Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research. In total we raised £2649.89, including donations made on our Just Giving page which went straight to the charity.

John Purser kindly travelled down from Coventry to Burton-on-Trent last night to meet as many of the Calendar Girls who could make it and take possession of the cheque.

With us were Little Theatre Company's chairman Peter Clemson and Artistic Director John Bowness - because obviously we could not have done it without them. It was their decision to stage the play Calendar Girl which inspired us to create our own calendar and raise as much as we could for the charity that is fighting to beat all blood cancers. They supported all our publicity efforts and let us launch the calendar at last September's Little Theatre Company Playathon day.

We'd also like to thank our talented photographer and calendar designer Tilley Bancroft and make-up artist Sheelagh Powell who supported us at last summer's photoshoot. Thanks also to Sara of BraSense who supported us with secret underwear during show week!

We would like to thank the people of Burton who gave to our fund so generously. We know times are hard and lots of good causes are competing for donations - so we are grateful for every penny given by the audiences who came to our show week in March 2013 as well as those who bought the calendar.

Thanks to our MP Andrew Griffiths who was quick to ask how he could help and posed for a photo with us when he bought a calendar to hang in his office at the House of Commons.

Thanks to George Gunby who sold our calendars at his Calendar Club stall in Cooper's Square in the run-up to Christmas and Pint Arts Festival who let us have a stall at their craft fair and the Burton town centre management who let us have a stand at the Christmas lights switch on.

Thanks to Sarah Spencer, who was a superbly organised treasurer, and all the other Calendar Girls who played their part in making the project a success and beating our original target of £2,500.

It's been an unforgettable experience.

WE DID IT!!!

Well, what a week we had at The Brewhouse in Burton-on-Trent last week.

Virtually every seat was sold for Little Theatre Company's six performances of Tim Firth's play Calendar Girls and the feedback from our audiences was fabulous. They laughed, they cheered, they burst into spontaneous applause and they shed a few tears too - moved by the story of Annie and John Clarke (Matt Bancroft and Vicky Fryer) and Annie's fiesty friend Chris (Heather Ratcliffe).

But there was plenty of comedy too - from the hapless Ruth (Elaine Pritchard) and her doomed efforts to create still life with fir cones and fancy dress for the summer fete, and her mismatched badminton night with WI Chairman Marie (Carol Brown). And who will forget guest speaker Brenda Hulse (Sonja Wardle) and her talk on the history of broccoli, Lady Cravenshire (Sarah Spencer) and her ponderings on the architectural origins of Knapeley Church and of course retired schoolteacher Jessie (Bethan Waite) irate at being asked to arrange flowers for a landowner's wife and her encounter with the excruciatingly patronising beautician (Caitlin Pritchard)?

When it came to "SCENE SIX", the calendar photoshoot itself, the ladies all agreed it was less stressful in the end than managing fast backstage costume changes and remembering a host of props. Single mother and church organist Cora (Vanessa Birch) showed off a tattoo (but it was temporary) and photographer Lawrence (Daniel Tunks) had the audience in stitches as he finally realised Jessie was his old school teacher. Trophy wife Celia (Hannah Mason) stirred him to anger when she moved his carefully arranged composition of buns - leading to one of the most eagerly-anticipated lines each night (sometimes we could hear members of the audience join in with Chris to announce): "We are going to need CONSIDERABLY bigger buns".

The girls got lots of support and help in the photoshoot scene from other members of Knapeley WI - Joyce  Pike, Jodie Durbin, Jane German, Kay St Clair and Dawn White.

Finally to complete the cast we had Liam (Rob Tunley) tasked with shooting a washing powder commercial with the girls, and Rod (Mark Pearson), Chris's long-suffering husband.

But last week was also about us striving to reach our challenging target of raising £2,500 for Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research - and, WE DID IT!! As I write, the total on our Just Giving Page stands at £2,649.89

It was thanks to a lot of people that we made this impressive total.

...Thanks to all those who donated raffle prizes - including The Mug Tug, in Barton-under-Needwood, who also surprised cast members with specially created, hand-painted jugs at the after-show party!

...Thanks to those who staffed the raffle stall in the Brewhouse bar at each performance selling raffle tickets and taking donations for our calendars and our crochet calendar girls.

...Thanks to the audience members who gave so generously.

...Thanks to Sarah Spencer - who was the Burton Calendar Girls finance chief throughout and sat up after each performance last week counting coins and texting the latest total to the girls.

..Thanks to the cast of the UK touring production of Calendar Girls who donated an autographed calendar and other memorabilia as raffle prizes.

...Thanks, of course, to the uber-talented Tilley Bancroft of Red Door Studios whose vision for the 2013 calendar we shot last summer made it such a beautiful piece of work.

...Thanks to Sara of Bra Sense and make-up artist Sheelagh  Powell who generously gave up time and products.... and all those who sold calendars for us.

There are also many, many thank you's associated with the play itself:

• Our amazing director John Bowness 
• Soundtrack supremo Peter Clemson
• The hard-working set crew who built Knapeley Village Hall for us
• Musical director Jack Hawkins
• Karen Hailstone for continuity
• Ben Yeomans for lighting
• Katie Haywood - and the cast - for props
• Geoff Thompson for photography
• The BADAC volunteers who staffed the bar each night
• Janet Plummer and Pam Anderson for selling programmes and staffing the coffee bar
• Little Theatre Company's private and corporate patrons - who help make our productions possible
• Brewhouse box office staff who stayed calm under a deluge of phone calls trying to get last minute tickets.
• The Burton Mail for pre-show publicity.

So, the adventure is finally over. Thank you for following our blog. Our JustGiving Page will stay open until the end of March 2013 to enable any late donations to be gathered in and then we'll be organising the handover of the money to the charity which is fighting so hard to cure blood cancers.

Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research has always been associated with the play since the real life calendar girls of  Yorkshire began fundraising for a settee for their local cancer ward following the death of the real John Clarke. Who could have imagined where that decision was going to lead?

Although there's such an important and serious point to the fund raising we have had so many laughs along the way with our photoshoot and last week's shows. I hope we brought a little sunshine into your life too.

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.
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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.

WE DID IT!!!!

Oh my goodness, where to start. 9am yesterday our ladies arrived at the Brewhouse, there was an awful lot of " what the heck are we doing?" " did we really say we'd do this?" But they all came armed with dressing gowns ( we didn't need clothes) food and drink and all with smiles and laughter.

We had a little pre-shoot chat when Tilley explained how the day would go. We decided to do our group shot in the auditorium first so that everyone could get in the mood and help lose their inhibitions a little. Sheelagh, our wonderful make up lady was on standby to start making us beautiful. So, bedecked in our dressing gowns Tilley arranged us and with only a Little Theatre Company programme to hide our modesty Tilley said those words "Ok ladies let's do it, take off your robes", without hesitation every one of us stood up and got naked, I can't begin to tell  you how unbelievably proud of everyone I was, we just did it, posed with our programmes and "Voila", shot number one done. We had decided that I would go first with Tilley, followed by Elaine, leading by example and hopefully letting the ladies know what they were in for. Everyone stayed in the auditorium the whole day and cheered each one of us on as we had our pose photographed.

The poses we had decided on, all based on a theatrical theme looked absolutely amazing, everyone of our ladies totally entered into the spirit, did what had to be done. Tilley of Red Door studios is an amazing photographer and her lighting was second to none. Whilst most of us were not allowed to look at our shots once Tilley had taken them, I did see some of them on the computer as she took them and I was totally blown away by them, her lighting of each shot made them look stunning. I know the ladies can't wait to see the shots but I know they'll be delighted with them.

There are so many people to thank, Sheelagh for giving up her day to make us all look so beautiful with her make up, that was greatly appreciated, Elaine and Caittom Publishing for providing us with Bucks Fizz and delicious wine, Bethan for her valiant efforts with Pimms and everyone else who bought goodies to make our day special. Thanks also to Matt and Ken for their lifting of heavy objects and for all the running around they did to help us. The biggest thank you and I know this comes from every one of us is for Tilley, who worked so tirelessly throughout the day, she's like the Energiser bunny, just doesn't stop and I know that the finished Calendar will be stunning, her talents are endless and we're very lucky to have her on our team.

Who'd have thought that over a year ago when Elaine and myself were having coffee one day and I said " hmmm wouldn't it be fun to a Calendar?" and Elaine say " now that's an idea" that we have actually done it and to raise, we hope, an awful lot of money for such a worthwhile cause.

There were a few little emotional moments yesterday during the shoot when I think we all realised what an amazing thing we'd just done, such a liberating and bonding thing, we're a very close group of women anyway but for us all to do this was wonderful. My huge thanks to every single one of  you who "bared" all and made yesterday such a truly special day,I am so very proud of all of you.

I'm posting this one picture, a sample of one of our shots, this was taken on Saturday when Tilley was setting up the lighting and I volunteered to stand in for the pose, of course lovely Heather was the one who did the actual pose and of course not fully dressed, but I hope you can get a feel for how wonderful Tilley's lighting was.

Now Tilley's work really begins as she has to edit the pictures and we'll make the final decision which ones goes on the Calendar, of course if you want to see how it turns out then you're going to have to buy a Calendar.

Make up artist Sheelagh Powell joins the team

I'm delighted to say that professional make up artist Sheelagh Powell will be helping our girls look their best at next month's calendar photoshoot.

Did I just say, 'next month'? Oh my goodness! That makes it sound REALLY close.

Sheelagh is in great demand for professional photoshoots and creating bridal make up and helping women look their best for special occasions so we feel incredibly fortunate to have her on the team.

As you know we are taking on this project to raise as much money as we possibly can for Leukaemia Research - so we'd love to hear from anyone who can help us with that aim later this year - either through promoting calendar sales or any other ideas. Leave us a comment below if you can help.

We'd also love it if you could spread the word about this blog to anyone who might like to follow us for updates.