November has dawned, and with it comes the tried-and-true tradition of men sprouting moustaches for the Movember charity.
Richmond Volunteer Fire Brigade volunteers James “Jimmy” Goodwin and Josh Ratcliffe have extinguished their existing facial hair to fire up donations and awareness for men’s health issues, such as prostate cancer, testicular cancer or mental illness.
While beards are forbidden for firefighters in Aotearoa so that their oxygen masks can seal to omit smoke and other dangerous gases, Jimmy could maintain a full seal with his facial hair.
Parting ways with it for his fifth time participating in Movember still required a double take.
“It’s quite sad shaving it off but it’s about supporting the cause, raising the awareness and supporting friends and family that have gone through different sorts of stuff like mental health,” he says.
“Get behind the cause and donate what you can.”
The cause is not limited to resembling Freddie Mercury, with Move for Movember also at play to get as many people as possible moving for 60km across the month. The 60km limit is in memory of the 60 men lost to suicide globally, every hour.
Brigade members Sam Oliver and Ash McCabe will be running and walking respectively to turbocharge the brigade’s Movember tally. Nelson construction company Gibbons Naylor is also raising money for Movember.
You can donate to Richmond Volunteer Fire Brigade’s fundraiser here.
Meanwhile, Kerry Templeton has cultivated a piece above his upper lip every November for the past two decades but will do so this year in tandem with fundraising.
The Plant and Food Research Motueka hop scientist is growing a ‘stache for Movember to raise funds and awareness for men’s health issues, such as prostate cancer, testicular cancer or mental illness.
His colleagues Lawrence Graham, Alastair Currie and David Bellamy have also joined forces, and colleague Shona Seymour is participating in the Move for Movember initiative which involves walking 60km across November.
The 60km limit is in memory of the 60 men lost to suicide globally, every hour.
Kerry says his annual new look each November had been a comical affair “to my wife’s disgust,” he laughs.
But the more he understood the reasons for Movember, he converted his growth into a charity case.
“Men are notoriously bad at talking about their health issues, particularly the ones that [Movember] is talking about like prostate and testicular cancer and just mental health in general,” he says.
“There’s no reason for the stigma to be there, there’s just this stupid culture we have where we don’t talk about certain things because it’s not deemed tough or cool but talking about this stuff should be cool.
“I think it’s quite good to raise awareness of what Movember do, it means men might talk about [their health] a bit more… and hopefully we can make a bit of money for these guys.”
Kerry says he’s clean shaven for 11 months and has traditionally sprouted a handlebar moustache in November, and he plans to sport a Tom Selleck mo for his inaugural go at fundraising.
You can donate to Plant and Food Research Motueka’s Movember fundraiser here.
