TOGs Calendar has
been around now for quite a few years, well as a business partnership it's relatively new, but in its original form it was started in 2000. Previously in
1999 Hugh Again and Mick Sturbs had produced and sold a small calendar out
of the St Andrews TOG Convention. With nothing taking shape for the
following year, Hellen Bach picked up the baton and queued at a book
signing in Bournemouth to ask Sir Terry if she could carry on and produce
a calendar. His reply of "If you are daft enough to risk your time
and money on it, go ahead" led to the start of a very successful
venture. Hells first produced a small Black and White calendar of the TOGs
Newsletter Front Covers and following a meeting the following year with
what was to become the core of the "Calendar Crew", the TOGs
Celebrity Calendar, in support of BBC Children in Need, was born.
The first TOGs Celebrity Calendar raised just over £23,000, and, with our merchandise sales as well, the 2006 total of £152,000 meant that the TOGs calendars had raised over HALF A MILLION pounds! The 2007 total of £137,000 and the 2008 total of £400,871 means that we have now donated over £1MILLION to the BBC Children in Need Appeal! I came in somewhere around calendar 2 or 3, when I asked Hells if she would like me to ask Beth Nielsen Chapman if she would appear in the calendar. I sort of hung around on the peripheries, was later invited to become one of the calendar crew and eventually, following a well told story that finishes one Saturday afternoon at Chievely Services on the M4, Hells and I have been together since and married in 2006!
Well TOGs Calendar has evolved beyond even our imagination of where it was going, what with the introduction of more and more merchandise. The final evolution came about when our dearly missed Pauly Walters said to Hells "We are thinking of doing a Janet & John CD for Children in Need, will you sell it on your website?" A few years later and here we are, both of us working full time raising money for BBC Children in Need, and the website turning over in excess of £1.5M per year! In 2006, with the calendar and merchandise, and the Janet & John CDs, TOGs Calendar helped raise over £1.2Million for the appeal. Add to that the fact that the Treasury finally gave in to TOG pressure, and millions of letters, well quite a lot anyway, and a cheque for £299,364 was paid into the appeal as a "One-off exceptional donation" to Children in Need, equivalent to the VAT paid on the J&J CD and TOGs Calendar! TOG Power. That made it £1.5Million for the 2006 Appeal!
Charity Goods was created so we could take on the sale of official BBC Children in Need Merchandise, side by side with TOGs Calendar Merchandise , as we have consolidated into one "shop" solution for selling and then distributing the goods through our volunteers.
The fundraising in 2007 was equally phenomenal, and contributed £1,158,143 to that year's appeal! Thanks to Hellen's wonderful idea to do a CD of songs from a golden era, sung by some of the Radio 2 presenters and friends, the 2008 total was once again fantastic at £1,072,728 which brings the total fundraising for BBC Children in Need to over £4MILLION.
None of this would have been possible without that core Calendar Crew, the ever growing number of volunteers, the continued support of Sir Terry Wogan, the celebrities who agree to appear in our calendar, and the helping hands of BBC Radio 2 and BBC Children in Need.
We hope you like our website, if you have any problems, or find any errors, please email Norman (Tude) Here
Norman & Hells