As a company that puts people first, here at Portman Recruitment we believe that it’s important to do our bit for charity. Which is why this month, a few of our team are getting stuck in and raising money for the Movember Foundation.
Paul, our Recruitment Director, Adam, our Senior Recruitment Consultant, and Georgia, our Recruitment Consultant, are taking part in the Move for Movember challenge, which means they each have to move 60k—by running, jogging or simply walking—in the 30 days of November. That’s 60k for the 60 men on average we lose to suicide every hour across the world.
Adam is also joining the millions of other men (aka “Mo Bros”) who are growing a Movember moustache this month. Movember aims to raise awareness and remove the stigma of various physical and mental health issues affecting men, namely prostate cancer, testicular cancer, suicide and depression.
“Being a man, men’s health is something that’s obviously important to me,” Adam says. “Mental health is at the forefront of a lot of peoples’ minds at the moment, and when you actually dig down into the facts about men’s mental health, it’s pretty alarming. There’s something that needs to be done about it.”
How do Paul, Adam and Georgia plan to tackle these 60 kilometers over the next month exactly? By breaking them down into three 5k runs a week over the next four weeks. Easier said than done, of course, but at least their pragmatic approach means they won’t be condemning themselves to the enviable task of running 20k in the final week.
So far, Adam and Georgia have each managed 10k in the first week, although it’s Paul who’s currently topping the office leaderboard having already run 15k. As someone who doesn’t run a lot, Georgia is enjoying this difficult but rewarding challenge. CrossFit enthusiast Adam, on the other hand, admits he’s finding the task tougher than he anticipated.
“My other half’s a bit of an avid runner—she runs every single morning—so I went out with her on Friday morning and ended up chasing her around,” he jokes. “It was a lot more difficult than I thought it was going to be.”
As for his Movember moustache, the normally bearded Adam is enjoying a slightly different experience thanks to his drastic new facial hair look. “This is the first time I’ve been
clean-shaven in about six years,” he says. “I was out having breakfast on Sunday and a few people walked past me and didn’t even recognise me!”
No matter how physically challenging the 60k may be, Paul, Adam and Georgia are more than happy to be supporting a meaningful cause like Movember Foundation, as well as raising funds for East Cheshire Hospice. “With us being a Macclesfield based company, they’re local to us. We purchase all our Christmas cards from them and we’ve made donations to them in the past, so we think it’s a great cause and local hospice to support.”
“It’s important to show that you care. If you step back and think, ‘Right, what can we do to help?’ Doing a bit of running is well within our power,” they add. “If we raise some awareness and generate a few quid, we think that’ll be a really positive thing.”
We’d like to wish Adam, Paul and Georgia the best of luck with their Move for Movember challenge! You can donate to their group Movember page here.