A fond look back on the Month of the Moustache
These past few weeks have given students at Symons Campus a first glance at what is in store for them this coming winter. Temperatures have plummeted, falling consistently below freezing each night. The first few flakes of snow have drifted softly down upon the ground, dusting the campus with a light layer of powder. Even on the streets of Peterborough, decorative wreaths adorn the lampposts of downtown, and trees are flashing and twinkling in the night; the signs are everywhere, letting us all know that winter is indeed right around the corner.
Yet, although such a winter wonderland is imminent in Peterborough, November, or should I say, Movember, is still giving one last hairy 'Hurrah!'
You may have noticed, these past few weeks, that the men (and even some of the women) that you met on campus looked a bit... furrier, or scruffier than you remember from back in September and October. Well, if you still haven't heard the hype and are wondering just what all that scruff is about, the answer can be summed up in one simple portmanteau: Movember. This worldwide month-long charity campaign, for which men grow their facial hair in order to raise money and awareness, is done in support of men's health issues such as prostate and testicular cancers.
"This is my second year doing Movember," says Trent student Matthew Lamers. "Last year I had sort of a patchy chin-strap, but this year I'm just letting it all grow." Indeed, all over campus, chin-straps, handlebars, caterpillars, and just plain old-fashion stubble has appeared like the 1980s revisited.
"I've seen a lot of moustaches this year," comments Karl Smyth Byrne, a student who now sports a full-fledged handlebar moustache. "[Trent] students are very supportive [of Movember]." Byrne, who admits that he grows his upper lip every eleventh month, says that there seems to be some kind of understanding between the Movember participants. "I was walking out of Bata Library," he recalls, "and there was another guy with a handlebar moustache. And as we walked past each other he just turned around to me and said 'Nice!'... I'd never met him before in my life!"
Movember mania seems to have flooded over into the Trent colleges as well. This month, Champlain College launched their Movember "Moflo" campaign, encouraging college members to participate in events like "Tape Your Dons to the Wall" and fabricating fake moustaches from felt. These events raised proceeds for the Movember Foundation, an international charity whose Canadian branch donates its proceeds directly to Prostate Cancer Canada.
And just across West Bank Drive, in the halls of Lady Eaton College, a month-long contest is wrapping up. The contest, to see which student could grow the best beard, was also in support of the Movember cause.
"It was kind of a group initiative," says Christian Hartman of LEC. "We all got together and wanted to see who could grow the biggest and fullest beards." According to Hartman, more than 30 LEC students are still involved in the contest which he hopes will raise awareness for Movember and for prostate cancer.
But where did this Movember moustache fever come from? How and where did it start? In fact, the history of this worldwide phenomenon can be traced all the way back to the 'land down under,' as it first surfaced in Australia in the late 1990s. While this date is disputed by the official Movember Foundation website, which lists its creation date as 2003, evidence from a local cable television station out of Adelaide, Australia, argues for Movember originating in 1999. By 2007, less than a decade later, the Movember initiative had already taken the world by storm, establishing official campaigns in more than seven countries, including Canada. As proof of its popularity, according to the Movember Foundation website, in 2009 alone there were more than 250,000 "Mo' Bros" and "Mo'Sistas" worldwide who participated in the event, raising over $47 million for men's health issues.
Back at Trent, that tradition of growing facial hair for charity is being carried out by Trent's own "Mo' Bros" and "Mo'Sistas." While Matthew Lamers admits that he's not taking pledges for growing out his beard and moustache, that doesn't mean he's not raising money. "I'm planning to have a party at the end of the month," he says, "I'm going to charge money and then donate that to charity."
This type of charitable ingenuity has not been restricted solely to Trent students either; Professor George Kovacs of the Ancient History Department took the idea of pledges one step further. Instead of just getting people to pledge money for him to grow a moustache, Professor Kovacs decided to grow out a full beard and auction off the design rights to the highest pledger.
"I got the idea from a friend," Kovacs told Arthur. "It's my first year doing Movember and so far it's going really well." Kovacs revealed that he has currently collected more than 150 pledges and will donate all the money he receives to charity. He said that if anyone is interested in donating to his campaign he can be reach by email at
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Even Trent's Men's Rubgy Team is doing its part to support the Movember madness. On November 25 they held the "Moustache Movember Charity Pub" in the Ceilie for which students piled in to sport their 'staches and bid on the rugby players in the marquee auction that took place. Currently, the rugby team has raised nearly $1,500 this month.
Looking back over the whole hectic month, to say that Movember at Trent was a success would be a drastic understatement. To reiterate what Karl Smyth Byrne said, what surprised me most was the enthusiasm that the students showed to participate.
I was one of those for whom this Movember was my first, so naturally I was worried by the thought of what a month's worth of facial fluff might look like. Yet, four weeks later I found the whole experience to be a lot of fun.
More than anything, Movember gave me a chance to bond with my peers in residence and share a good-natured laugh over our own unique patchiness. Many an early-adult male (myself included) has flirted with the idea of growing a great big Tom Selleck 'stache, or of modelling bushy handlebars above the upper lip. Movember instils in us that opportunity and the fact that it is all for a great cause only adds to the experience.
So, those of us who previously thought that the month of November, Remembrance Day aside, was nothing more than a cold, dreary, month-long lead up to the start of the Christmas season, have something exciting to look forward to. As for me, I plan on circling the whole eleventh month on my calendar for years to come.
