The Goodies Rule - OK! Fan Club

**The Goodies Rule - OK!** is a fan club for British comedy television series *The Goodies*.  It was founded by Alison Bean in 1995 and currently has over 4,200 members in more than 70 countries.

## History

In November 1995 Alison Bean founded the group with the name The \*NEW\* Goodies Fan Club, to separate itself from the former fan club ran by Melinda Casino. Along with starting up the club, Alison also created The Clarion & Globe Newsletter, a monthly newsletter sent out to subscribers of the fan club giving updates on everything from ranking Goodies episodes to talking about what the actors were doing after the series ended.

Before the club settled on their current name they actually had many other names in mind including The Super-Chaps, The Ecky Thumps, The EBGB's, The Yum-Yums, The Funky Gibbons, The Crazy Teapots, The Plague of Rolf Harrises, The Giant Kittens, The Flying Dodos, The Puppet Government, The Potholing Goodies, The Frankenfidos, The Giant Kittens and the Mind Narrowers All these names were originally intended for the former fan club before it was shutdown. In February 1996 the site was finally named after a long voting process, The Goodies Rule - OK! won the poll. The club is named after the 1975 special The Goodies Rule – O.K.?.

As far back as 1997 the group were making plans for a 30th anniversary convention in Australia, with talks of where it will take place and how much tickets should cost to attend. In April 2000 the group held the convention named Kitten Kon to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the series. It was held from the 21st to the 22nd that month. All three of the Goodies attended the event however only Tim Brooke-Taylor was there in person, with Graeme and Bill appearing via satellite video link for the Q&A. Robert Ross was also their to debut his book The Goodies Guide.

On May 12th 2000, Alison Bean stepped down from as president of the club after four and a half years. Taking over from her would be Catharine Carter. By June 12th that year the group had already gained over 1200 members from all over the world becoming the biggest Goodies fan club. Three more members of GROK also departed during the months following Kitten Kon for different reasons, related to work and life.

> After four and half years Alison Bean is hanging up her black pudding and retiring as President of The Goodies Rule - OK! Alison is off to the UK on a working visa but wishes to stress that she does not intend to live in Earls Court, drinking Fosters and saying "G'day mate" a lot. Her place as club President will be taken by current Vice President Brett Allender. Brett's place will be taken by Catherine Carter. The club's Technical Officer, Tim Aslat, will be taking over control of the website. The rest of the committee will remain the same.
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> Article from *Clarion and Globe* Issue No. 53

On May 12th 2001, Catherine Carter addressed the possibility of another convention in 2002 following the extremely successful Kitten Kon. It was going to be called *2001 & A bit* as a reference to the episode of the same name as well as the convention taking place *a bit* after 2001. It was to be held in Sydney and possibly would have all three Goodies in attendance. The club had hoped that some of the fans across Australia could chip in to help raise enough money to hold the convention. The convention sadly never came to pass.

During October that year sadly Catherine stepped down from presidency due to work commitments. Due to her sudden departure as president along with five other members of the group resigning after many years of work with the site, a lot of upcoming projects including *2001 & A Bit* had to be shelved until new management was settled.

> The "Goodies Rule OK" Fan Club committee was sad to receive the resignation of our President, Catherine Carter, at the end of September due to her additional work commitments. Catherine has done a wonderful job since taking on the presidency at the start of this year and all members who have had contact with her during this time have no doubt appreciated her enthusiasm, efficiency and helpfulness. On behalf of all members, the committee thanks Catherine for her fabulous effort and we hope that she may be able to resume as President again at some stage in the future.
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> Article from *Clarion and Globe* Issue No. 70

After the resignation there were concerns at that point that many of the club's activities would be curtailed due to the lack of people power on the committee; however there was a considerable flow of e-mails, ideas and discussion among several club members in the following weeks and a new president was appointed with the role now being changed to Grand Master, a reference to the episode Kung Fu Kapers.

> It's a pleasure to officially welcome Kay Dickinson as the new GROK President (a position which is now also known as "T' Grand Master", a reference from the Kung Fu Kapers ("Ecky Thump") episode of The Goodies. Kay is not only our first British club President, but also hails from Bury, which is merely a scOnes (scones!) throw away from the home of Eckythump in Rochdale, Lancashire, so she truly is a Grand Master and has proved it already with her fabulous enthusiasm for all things Goodie.
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> Article from *Clarion and Globe* Issue No. 71