Ranked: The Durham University societies who raised the most for Movember

An ode to those who unleashed their inner Gandalf…

1 year ago | UPDATED 1 year ago

This year’s annual Movember campaign has officially come to a close, an event which saw Durham University smash and go beyond its target of £70,000.

Seeing the sea of taches in the library has undoubtedly brought a smile on everyone’s faces. Having decided to grow some facial hair myself, I’m relieved to finally be able to shave off the three hairs I’ve managed to grow, but personally, it has been a worthwhile and challenging experience.

The Movember Foundation Charity, established in 2003, aims to raise awareness and fundraise men’s mental health projects, most notably research on prostate cancer, mental health and suicide prevention among men, and testicular cancer. This year has seen 40 teams and 622 individuals participating, growing taches among other acts to help fundraise for this worthy cause.

Grey College Rugby Football Club

GCRFC has topped the charts this year, raising £11,581.19. The club told us that this year they aimed to raise at least £10,000 by taking fundraising measures both on and off the pitch. Implementing a strict policy of having all the boys create a Movember page, growing taches, and encouraging the lads to partake in their own challenges. This transformed a group of large (and some may say intimidating) rugby boys into a well-oiled fundraising machine.

Some of the individual challenges included running 100 kilometres within the month, running to Newcastle from Durham, and walking to Seaham and back, while spending nine minutes in the freezing water for the nine per cent of men affected by poor mental health. Moreover, the tactical use of sponsorships led to sales of Movember stash, such as gym tops and bucket hats, as well as a weekly Movember quiz, where various donation prizes were given out.

Jacob Cowley, speaking on behalf of the club, told The Tab Durham: “I’d just like to say I am incredibly proud of everyone in this club, and so thankful for every donation, share, or kind words sent our way. It really was an effort of the community, especially that of Grey College, that allowed us to raise as much as we did. I’d like a special thank you to William Oswald, our Charities Officer, he was awesome this year. He really helped set up so many donation prizes and was so hot on it this year for his own personal reasons. The only way I could wrap this up is by ending with ‘All the Grey Boys’”.

Hatfield College Rugby Football Club

Coming in second, Hatfield College Rugby Football Club has collectively raised £10,670.52. Smashing their record of £10,400, the team managed to sell ‘Movember stash’, organised 3 charity matches raising over £700 and organise various charitable events. It was this team spirit, co-ordination and individual effort which makes the Hatfield team proud to be growing their taches.

Edward Barry, who sits 2^nd in the University for donations, told us all about his individual feats and challenges for the Rugby team’s Movember donations:“I’ve been lucky enough to raise over £2000 by doing weird and wonderful challenges. I expected to raise about £80 so I set all these challenges at very low milestones, this backfired quite quickly. For £150 I said I’d get 95 and lightning bolts cut into my hair, in homage to Lightning Mcqueen.

“For £200 I said I’d wear black tie all day into Tesco, the library and all my seminars which certainly got me some weird looks. For £250 I covered myself in 2.3kg of HP sauce. For £300 I spent 36 hours in the library, moving seat every hour making sleep nearly impossible. For £350 I went vegetarian, Spaghetti Bolognese is the cornerstone of my diet, so this was especially difficult. For £450 I dropped what I was doing and walked to Newcastle in a Deadpool Morphsuit with a playlist I let my donors choose on repeat. For £600 I ran a half marathon. Again, I set all these goals expecting to maybe at an absolute worst have a couple of Greggs vegan sausage rolls on the last day of November.

“These challenges raised £800 by the 11th. So, I had to come up with a new set of challenges as the idea was clearly working.”

These new goals included climbing up and down the height of Mt Fuji on the stairs next to Jimmy’s; wearing a Deadpool Morph Suit while having the whole team rugby tackle him (with a £30 bounty on his head) and doing a solo ballet performance. Most notably though, he’s single handedly outraised multiple Durham teams. Bit of advice, find someone who cares about you as this guy cares about Movember.

“It’s safe to say it all got out of hand in the best of ways and raised lots of money in the process”.