Calendar Girls

Bare to be Different - That South Arm Calendar

In the late 1990’s the Committee of the Calverton Hall Association decided that new stage curtains were needed.

A “curtain” account was set up and various fund raising functions were held. An estimate was that new curtains would cost around $6,000.00. Early in 2001 the account had nearly $800 in it and the feeling was that they would would all probably be dead by the time enough money was raised.

Then the Secretary, Dot Kelly, came forward with an idea, and a surprising one at that!

She had been sent a calendar made in England by a group of women in various stages of undress and suggested to a meeting that the committee should do something like that. The reaction ranged from opposition to mild interest. But Dot wasn’t deterred and persuaded a group of her friends to take part, then presented the idea to a Committee meeting. She had done her homework well and had everything ready to go - her daughter Anne would do the photos; a printer was lined up and the calendars would sell for $10.00. She estimated that selling to family and friends would raise the necessary amount.

The Treasurer had made it clear that she didn’t think they would sell enough to cover costs - who would want to buy a calendar of stupid old women in the buff? But said she wouldn’t oppose going ahead and hoped to be proved wrong.

The photo shoot went ahead with much laughter and the ladies had lots of fun deciding on the photos for each month and thinking up witty captions. An order for a run of 1000 calendars was placed with the printers.

With everything in place it was decided to have a special evening at the Hall to launch the calendar... and what a night that turned out to be! The ladies came in all their finery and a great night was had by all with orders taken for 700 calendars. The next day an order for more calendars was placed with the printers.

Then publicity started to flow. A Current Affair did a segment on national TV, a German film crew made a documentary and Reuters put it on their international news. And so the orders flooded in from all over Australia and around the world.

Every morning the calendar ladies would meet together to process the orders and package calendars for posting. Many orders were accompanied by congratulatory letters and comments. The ladies had many a laugh - one order for 12 calendars came from the Little Sisters of Mercy in Kings Cross!

Every few days a bag of cheques and money orders would be delivered to the Treasurer for banking. The bank deposit book only had spaces for 7 entries so she set up a spreadsheet with 50 spaces to enter the details. When she had banked over $26,000 she realised that she hadn’t factored in GST. She sought advice from an accountant and was told that since the Association was a ‘not for profit organisation’ they could raise up to $100,000 without having to pay GST. That seemed so laughable that she didn’t give it another thought.

Not long after that however over $100,000 had been banked and the Committee met to discuss what to do. Orders were still flowing in and it was decided to ask Dot’s daughter Anne if she would like to take over and run it as a private business. Anne was willing to take over and set preparations in place for a 2003 Calendar. She also produced a number of merchandise items - tea towels, mugs, mouse pads.

The Committee then started to look at how the money could be spent. Of course the stage curtains were top priority and these were duly ordered. Since the material had to come from England it would take a while to have them in place.

Piggery Productions, the local amateur theatre group, uses the Hall for their annual review which raises fund for our local primary school. There were no dressing rooms at the Hall so it was decided to build dressing rooms behind the stage area. The Council agreed, tenders were let and a design chosen that kept the extension in keeping with the existing building.

Next was an upgrade to the kitchen in order to have it classed as a “commercial kitchen”. A commercial quality dishwasher, working bench tops and cupboards were installed and new crockery, cutlery, glassware and kitchen equipment bought.

The tennis court had been closed due to the dangerous state of the concrete surface so with a grant from Sport and Recreation, and a contribution from the Clarence Council, a state of the art surface was laid and new fence erected.

In 2003, the new dressing rooms were completed and the curtains installed. To celebrate this, in March an Old Style Music Hall night was held. Due to the weight of the curtains, opening and closing was very hard work so it was decided to have them made electronically operated.

Midge Moore, one of the local ladies who had worked on calendar, wrote a stage play about the making of the calendar which was taken up by Mainstage Theatre Company and staged at the Peacock Theatre in 2002. It played to full houses!