Movember

For those that know me, the month of Movember is one of my favourites in the year (besides AFL finals in September...).

Movember in short, is a month for blokes like me to grow a mo, fundraise and basically look silly for a great cause.

Movember was first founded in Melbourne (Australia) 2003 and with just a couple of mates, word spread of their fundraising efforts and more and more wanted to join. Since then it has over 1.9million Mo Bro's and Mo Sista's... Australia, New Zealand, US, Canada, the UK, South Africa, Ireland, Finland, the Netherlands, Spain, Denmark, Norway, Belgium and the Czech Republic all have formal registers online for everyone to join. Its also rumoured that there are people joining and fundraising from Russia to Dubai, Hong Kong to Antarctica, Rio de Janeiro to Mumbai!

Since then a number of celebrities have also joined in support, the odd couple will do it in the US but we have a number of ones joining in Australia which is awesome!

Me, my journey began in 2006 when i heard alot of blokes from work talking about it the year before - some were thinking of doing it so i decided to form a team at work called, Mo Wars - Episode 1 - The Phantom Mo...

The idea was to get us to grow mo's and then dress up as Star Wars characters at the gala event at the end of Movember... Idea was great, for me... pity i'm the only Star Wars fan at my work, so we continued to go with the theme however noone would dress up haha...

Started off strong and we had over 14 participants, some found it hard, both growing a mo as well as fundraising for donations. I had a stellar year through organising Melbourne Cup Sweeps as well as a pre drinks function before the gala party. Sweeps is where we make the donations.. Funny thing about Melbourne Cup, everyone wants the favourites and then the others win.. so people go nuts and buy as many as possible, me i end up spending way too much and never win...

I managed to raise over $1k for that first year which was awesome, since then i've only been able to get over the $1k mark three times however have pushed around the $500,$600 & $800 mark on the other occasions. I haven't kept a good tally however believe i have raised approx $5k since i first joined which i love, can't wait to one day reach $10k & $20k...

Our team continued the themes but last few years many have dropped off, to the point where in 2010 we only had 2 Mo Bro's and 1 Mo Sista... Dark times for our team but we have bolstered the group by extending abroad to our parent company and recruiting members in Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmania... We now go by a new name "Team IOOF" however parts of me still refers to Mo Wars... Our team roughly raises approx $5k each year so I believe we've raised around $20k in the six years (allowing for very lean years with hardly anyone joined...)

If your reading this I urge you to get involved somehow, be it by joining and growing a mo as a Mo Bro, join as a Mo Sista and help raise funds and awareness or just simply donate what you can to a participant.

The more we get participating and donating the bigger this event becomes, the more funds the receipients receive to help fund the research and support programs in place to help those affected by Prostate Cancer and Male Depression.

Hey at the end of the day for us participants its a great laugh, some of us can grow big hairy monsters whilst some can only grow what we commonly refer too as a "Lame Mo"...

But its all great fun, we all have a laugh and help raise as much as we can.

So in that month of Movember, keep an eye out for the charity, join up wherever you are in the world by jumping on www.movember.com register a team and go from there, they give you all the tools to email your sponsors, connect via facebook or twitter, print out business cards and posters as well as give out some great prizes both locally and globally for the best and worst Mo's, best themed Mo etc...

If you'd like more information about Movember or would like to know the History and more about receipients such as Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and BeyondBlue then head to www.movember.com and go from there

Good luck - and i hope to see you all joined up as a Mo Bro or Mo Sista soon (Or one of our donators...)