Movember round-up: Warwick smashes last year’s total, raising over £44,000

It’s that time of the year again when boys walk around sporting various degrees of facial hair, all in the name of charity… it’s Movember of course!

For those who’ve been living under a rock, Movember is an annual event held in November (duh!) when men across the world grow out their facial hair to raise money and awareness for men’s health issues such as prostate cancer, testicular cancer, mental health and suicide prevention.

And this year Warwick has done an INCREDIBLE job at fundraising, with 69 clubs, societies and teams raising over £44,000 for this brilliant cause. Despite the pandemic, and the difficulties it’s brought, Warwick has completely smashed last year’s total of £19,425 and we couldn’t be prouder!

Meet Matt and Seth, Warwick’s 2 Movember Ambassadors

Warwick’s Movember effort was organised by two Campus Ambassadors, Matt Alexander and Seth Bondonno, who co-ordinated the fundraising efforts and organised campaign events- not an easy task during a global pandemic! These included a Mental Health Livestream, Virtual Taskmaster and Move 5 For Movember.

Movember Ambassador Matt Alexander said, “Movember is a really important cause, as it aims to stop men from dying too young. It’s a great charity as it has a dual approach- not only does it raise funds but it also tackles the culture that leads to men failing to seek help early. It’s been great to see the university pull together despite the lockdown to smash last year’s total too!”

Event organiser Seth Bondonno added, “Movember’s work is vital, such as investing in community-based, early intervention programs that encourage men to talk openly and not only develop skills and resilience but also networks and outlets for men to lean on in tough times.

“The response of societies to Movember has been wonderful, and I hope we now build on our vibrant Movember culture at Warwick. However, men’s mental health problems exist in the other 11 months of the year. It is important that we continue to open up the conversation throughout the whole year, encourage men to go to therapy and continue to have conversations with each other.”

Warwick’s Movember effort has been support by 68 clubs, societies and groups, with over 500 students participating. Here’s the final top five team leaderboard:

1. Stache-oscopes
2. University of Warwick Rugby Football Club
3. University of Warwick Ladies’ Hockey Club
4. University of Warwick Men’s Hockey Club
5. Warwick RAG

We spoke to some of the top teams to find out how they got involved and why!

Stache-oscopes

This team of seven Warwick Medical School students have managed to raise a whopping over £8500 between themselves through some inventive challenges, like a relay marathon. Shout out to Team Captain Luke Starr for his commitment to Movember with that chest-hair moustache!

Meet the Stache-oscopes!

Also in their team is 25-year old Med Student, Vikram Thandi, who is Warwick’s top individual fundraiser! He explained that Movember, and promoting awareness of men’s mental health, was so important to him because he recently lost his brother to mental health.

“I’m grateful to all those who’ve provided support and donations in his name and for Movember. I want to take this opportunity to say to anyone who’s struggling with mental health issues, don’t suffer in silence, the strongest thing you can do is ask for help.”

Vikram and his piano-inspired Movember beard

University of Warwick Ladies’ Hockey Club

Yes that’s right- women support Movember too! 36 members of the Ladies Hockey Club took part in Move for Movember, running 60k each for the 60 men that are lost to suicide every hour across the world. The girls all managed to complete the challenge (despite many of them apparently not being being runners!) and raising over £3500 collectively.

“We chose to get involved in Movember because at UWLHC we love a challenge and this one was similar to the 10K we did for NHS charities together in May. We wanted to help in anyway possible really and we can’t grow moustaches!”

Well done to all the UWLHC girls!

University of Warwick Men’s Hockey Club

Well done to the boys at UWMHC for raising over £2500 with their brilliant hair-growing attempts! A representative from the club explained that “Movember is hugely important to us as it allows us to raise money for a great cause relating to men’s health, both mental and physical, which is becoming ever more important and especially this year.”

Two brilliant efforts… and two not so much- let’s hope they’re better at Hockey than they are at growing facial hair :/

It’s not just ‘stache growing that students have been doing to raise money for Movember though. Thanks to the Movember Virtual Auction, students have been streaking, dyeing their hair and even shaving off their eyebrows to raise money. And yes we doubted that anyone would actually go through with this… but we have proof!

Second-year Hispanic Studies with Chinese student Ben Hunt unfortunately came home with the big ticket prize of shaving off his eyebrows (though the auction did raise over £700, including matched funding)! Well done to Ben for taking one for the team- and his flatmate Manahul Bhatta for sharing these pics with us!

Time to invest in a good eyebrow pencil…

We asked Warwick Tab readers on Instagram to nominate their friends for “Best ‘Stache” and there were some AMAZING entries- here’s a selection of our favourite five!

L-R Billy Arnold, Abbas Adejonwo, Haroon Ali, George Burgess, Ed Plumb