Charity Goods.

TOGs Calendar has been around now for quite a few years, well as a business partnership it's quite 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 the 2006 total of £152,000 meant that the six calendars had raised over HALF A MILLION pounds! The 2007 total of £137,000 means that we have now donated more than £685,000 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 couple of 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 £2M per year! Last year, 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 has been born as a sister website and will 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 we will contribute £1,158,143 to this year's appeal!

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