Farnham's Mighty Movember Effort
Farnham RUFC have been busy raising money for Movember and are ranked #1 in the country.
The annual Movember event sees the growing of moustaches during November to raise awareness of men's health issues, such as prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and men's suicide.
Activities at the Farnham club this this year included a 24-hour 'sportathon', including some marathons rowed, a marathon on assault bikes, and a half marathon on a ski-erg. There was also a 60km overnight walk from Twickenham to Farnham. The club are close to reaching £100,000 raised over the past three years.
Movember Committee member Ollie Banks Thompson said: “As a club we have been raising funds for Movember since 2019 and are hoping to surpass the £100,000 mark this year. Every year we have been blown away by the support and generosity from the local community and we are currently not far away from this target."
COMMUNITY SPIRIT
The club’s fundraising efforts began years ago with their first Movember initiative, and they have only gone from strength to strength.
“Over the years we have fundraised by undertaking various physical challenges as well as selling raffle tickets & Movember themed club stash,” continued Ollie. “Last year we embarked on a 60km walk from our clubhouse to Richmond to watch the inaugural ‘MoBros RFC’ invitational charity match which involved a number of our players. Some of the team involved enjoyed it so much that they decided to do the reverse journey from Twickenham Stadium back to the club this year.
“We have also had members of the club involved in a 24hr ‘sportathon’ which involved a wide range of activities stretching from table tennis to 2 members of the senior section each rowing a marathon. The highlight was a touch session on Friday night which saw members from almost every age group and section of the club involved.”
Outside of Farnham, a few men from the Senior squad have been representing the MoBros Rugby Squad fronted by Fraser McDonald-Lister, a prominent Movember fundraiser and member of rival team Battersea Ironsides. 1st XV winger Alex Chalker recently represented Farnham in the MoBros team playing at the Dubai Sevens tournament, alongside Fraser and the rest of the MoBros squad.
WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT
Fundraising aside, the benefits of the Movember initiative have been felt close to home and is a cause that means a lot to members of the club.
Ollie said: “The Movember initiative cause areas are Prostate Cancer, Testicular Cancer, and Mental Health & Suicide Prevention. As a club, we are all so passionate about these causes as many of us have first-hand experience of dealing with these issues. Whether that is someone personally being impacted or seeing friends, family & loved ones going through these issues, it really highlights the importance of the work that the Movember charity do.
“We have run a Changing Room Chats initiative with Dr Rob Mitchell spending time talking to anyone who may need mental health support and guidance. We really feel we have built an environment where those who are struggling in silence feel like they can open up to teammates and start some really important conversations.
“The Movember initiative at Farnham is fronted by a core team of leads from each section of the club and it has been fantastic to see the entire club buy-in to our efforts. We are ranked #1 in the UK sport challenge and also ranked 21st out of all teams globally at the time of writing! We would be thrilled if we can hit our £100,000 goal and would be hugely appreciative of any donations which can help get us over the line.”
