A calendar safe from groupies

There was an excessive amount of management and an excessive amount of madness! Marie-Josée Chalifour, who works with the Quebec Firefighters Foundation for Burn Sufferers, discusses how the foundation helps burn victims. Ms. Chalifour is in many ways like the “mom” of the calendar, the production of which she has supervised for the past 23 years. The calendar, which features photos of firefighters posed in a sexy and suggestive manner in order to raise funds for people who have suffered serious burns, displays these photos.

I stopped doing public marketing and media launches since there were fewer and fewer guys willing to pose for the photos because it was inconvenient for them.

Circus

Many people were put off by the circus that surrounded the calendar.

“We held a launch in Quebec as well as in Montreal, and the excitement was always more in Quebec!

“I remember a woman there who paid $500 to be able to walk away with the t-shirt that one of the guys was wearing,” the narrator said. “It was one of the guys that were wearing it.

When the firefighters arrived at the scene, the crowd was largely under control and did not become disorderly.

When they came down to interact with members of the public, the situation became more difficult.

It was as though rock stars were there; it was insane.

Approximately twenty years ago, the calendar had email addresses that could be used to contact models.

Bad idea!

According to Ms. Chalifour, “guys were getting very explicit photographs of ladies trying to entice them without them having asked for them.”

It was risky because we did not know for certain how old these admirers were.

The secret of the barracks

Ms. Chalifour was required to refrain from identifying the barracks as well. They were contacted by “groupies” either by phone or in person.

“Some turned up during interventions and crossed the security cordon saying, “I want to see such-and-such!” ”

According to Mathieu Beaudoin (Mr. Avril), from Longueuil, “I have done public launches in the past, and in my case, it was a man who came to pose with me at each public occasion. He admitted to having thoughts of ending his own life. That was beyond my capabilities at the time. I pointed him in the direction of the Suicide Action Montreal organization.

Marital vet

Before posing, I spoke to my spouse about it, it was a couple’s decision,” said David Laroque (Monsieur September), of Magog. If it required me to perform on stage in front of an audience, I would not have agreed to do it.

Louis-Philippe Couture (Mr. August), 26, a firefighter from Lévis, who is too young to have experienced the “madness” of which Ms. Chalifour speaks, said that it is important to remember that we are doing this first and foremost for the cause of the Foundation and to raise money for serious burn victims. “It’s important to remember that we’re doing this for the Foundation’s cause and to raise money for serious burn victims,”

“As a major burn victim since the age of 12, I took advantage of the calendar with the money that financed some of my trips to meet other people in my situation, in particular,” Véronique Potvin, who is 28 years old and the spokesperson for the calendar, tells me. Potvin is a burn survivor and has been a victim of burns since the age of 12. Ms. Potvin was the sole lady in Quebec who was aware of the “safe from groupies” rule from 5 to 7 and the excesses that occurred ten years ago.