In case you’ve been living under a rock though, Movember is an annual charity challenge, whereby men grow a moustache in order to raise money for Prostate Cancer.

Movember

This year was my 3rd year of participation, and I’m extremely happy to announce that I smashed my target of £1000 – by raising over £1200! Of course I wouldn’t have been able to get to that figure without the help of everyone who donated, and supported me along the way – with words of both encouragement and mockery… So thanks for that!

You can see my donation page here – with a load more pictures and other such moustache related nonsense!

Movember Mike 2011 Website

I took it upon myself to redesign and rebuild my “Movember Mike” website this year – a fresh lick of paint is always a refreshing change, and this time around I built it responsively. Before you ask, a responsive website is one that will re-arrange it’s content depending on the screen size of the device that you’re looking at it on. So it looks great on everything from an iPhone to a 40″ TV screen – give it a try by dragging the corner to make the site larger or smaller! Oooooh…

Digital Sizzle Moustaches

Not satisfied with simply having a new website to promote my efforts, I raised even more “cash for tash” by running an event in aid of the charity – Digital Sizzle! This is a side-project that me and 2 other guys set up, which we run in our spare time: a quarterly networking event for tech-types and media-moguls. We hosted the evening at the Adam Street Private Members Club on The Strand, and had over 250 people in attendance! We even had some moustache judging awards, with our special guest judging panel consisting of Omid Ashtari from Foursquare, Stephen Sobey from Yahoo, and Steve Webb from Google. Needless to say, much fun was had on the night, and a lot of money was raised for a worthy cause – over £3,000 in total from our team!

Me and Chris Shanahan, Top Left Design friend!

The next day saw no rest for the moustache, as I was off to the Official Movember Gala Parté – in full 1940′s military costume! I say this every time around, but it’s the best night of the year without fail – and I look forward to each and every one. There’s something quite special about a venue full of thousands of costumed men and women, all in a great happy charity mood! Nothing quite comes close in my opinion – there’s a fantastic atmosphere, and my kudos goes to the Movember events team for consistently throwing a brilliant party every year.

The Finished Article

And with the end of the month, out comes the shaver once more… Last night I said goodbye to my furry friend, and washed him down the plughole with my own tears – at least 3 times today I’ve gone to stroke my missing follicles… Nevermore, nevermore…

Until next year, that is!

You may have noticed a suprising increase in moustache abundancy recently – and subsequently as we roll into December, a sudden lack of Tom Selleck look-a-likes.

Are you experiencing any unexpected moustache-withdrawal symptoms?

For anyone who doesn’t already know, Movember is an annual charity event, where for the month of November, men across the world grow moustaches and get sponsored for doing so – all in the fight against prostate cancer!
Think of it like the men’s version of the pink ribbon.

The Movember rules are simple:

1. Each Mo-Bro must start November 1st with a clean-shaven face
2. Then, for the entire month of November, each Mo-Bro must grow & groom a moustache according to these rules:

• There is to be no joining the mo’ to the side burns  – that’s a beard!
• There is to be no joining of the handlebars on the chin – that’s a goatee!
• A small complimentary growth under the bottom lip is allowed – (AKA ‘The Tickler’)

It’s been an interesting month to say the least – Thankfully, Keren was very happy for me to participate, and even gave me my first sponsorship! This also meant that I couldn’t back out if the Mo’ became too much to handle!

The first week wasn’t too bad, since at that early stage you can get away with the stubble, though it can look a bit pathetic at the start…

But as the weeks went by, it grew. And grew some more. And that’s when the funny looks on the tube started.
However it’s a defining moment to be on a crowed tube, and see a random man across the way who is also sporting a ‘tache, looking slightly embarrassed. You catch eyes, and give “the nod”.. From one mo-bro to another!

By the end of Movember, my mo’ was huge and more comical than embarrassing!

So far I’ve raised £160 for the cause – much more than I thought I would when I started out!

And at last count, the UK has raised a total of £3,841,626! Almost 4 MILLION pounds!

Globally, Movember has generated £19,790,822 so far, and donations are still welcome!

See this page for the current tally

Here is a link to my donation page (with pictures!)

On Friday night (27th November) I went to the London Movember Gala Party in Battersea Evolution – and it was the best night I have had this year!

It was so much fun, the place was full of awesome friendly people, with such a great atmosphere, I had 2 great friends with me and it went on from 7pm to 3am!
There was an orange carpet outside (the colour of the movember site) – inside was funky 70′s music, 12 bars, photographers, cage dancers, breakdancers, raised dancefloor with camera men feeding footage to a big screen, mechanical bulls, dodgems, ping pong tournaments, poker, blackjack, roulette, goodiebags, and free photobooths (see a picture of me with 2 sexy “Mo Chicks” below!!

We still want your help donating so click to sponsor Michael and Top Left Design for Movember!

He has been doing brilliantly so far, and has participated actively with us on Twitter (follow him on www.twitter.com/tremulantdesign.
Oh, and you may as well follow us too!

One thing he can do which none of us girls at TLD could is participate in “Movember“.

Luckily our friend Alan Ogden from 3DPixel.net (who run our hosting servers) decided to use his own photo retouching skills on our faces, with impressive results.

See below – but really we still want your help donating so click on the image to sponsor Michael and Top Left Design for Movember!