The Twins 2005 calendar was conceived after a relaxing night in the company of 11 ladies from Rhylstone, and a few glasses of wine. I was watching Calendar Girls, the movie of the "Alternative WI calendar" of 2000 - you know, the one where they took their kit off. I suddenly thought of all the beautiful photo's regularly posted on our forums, and realised that we could do our very own charity calendar, and (thankfully) I wouldn't have to get naked.

It all seemed really straightforward - get a bunch of photo's in, send them to a printer and bobs'-your-uncle. Mmmm. There was a little bit more to it than that, as I was soon to discover. I soon realised I had bitten off much more than I could chew, when out flew an angel to my rescue. Cue, Anita B.

This is Anita B - (pictured left) longstanding Twinsclubber and fabulously talented technical editor - very handy with photo's too! Anita very generously offered her fantastic talents for free, and saved us hundreds of pounds by designing the calendar herself. She also saved me many sleepless nights, because I had faith that she would pull it off in the end.

Despite last minute hitches (ie realising that grey is actually a colour, not just a shade of black!) the calendars were printed on time and soon ready for despatch to my home in the highlands of Scotland. I then loaded them all on my car and drove them all the way back down to England (in fact to about 50 miles short of where they had been printed) to launch them at the Tamba Telford Fun day, on July 10th 2004.

Calendar sales went well, with lots of people buying multiple copies, getting their christmas shopping done early!! We have to say a big thank you to everyone who bought a copy, especially those who bought 20, yes 20!!

By the end of 2004 we had virtually sold out all 1000 copies, and had a tidy sum of £2000 to hand in to BLISS, joint recipients of calendar profits, along with www.twinsclub.co.uk

I travelled down to London to hand in the cheque to Jackie Glazebrook, the lady I had been liaising with at BLISS, our chosen charity. Earlier in the calendar planning stages, we had asked our members to suggest a charity recipient, and as so many had been in SCBU's and had benefitted from BLISS, the premature baby charity, it was an outright winner.

Everyone at BLISS was so friendly, and they made me feel very important. I was shown around the office and introduced to everyone from the Chairman to the accounts department. (I told them to bank the cheque quickly, to be sure it didn't bounce!)

So with the photo's collected and collated, the printing complete, the calendars sold and the money donated, it was soon time to start it all over again for our 2006 calendar.

Keep on reading for news of the 2006 Calendar!

Pictured below are Jackie Glazebrook, Community Events Manager for BLISS, (left) and Lindsey Gray, co-founder www.twinsclub.co.uk with the proceeds of the Twins 2005 calendar.

The October page from the calendar...