This morning the boys all showed up freshly faced and Mo-less, although once again Sam still had to convince the team he hadn’t shaved yet. 30 days, 4 Mo’s, over $8500 raised, the NZ CHAMPION, a TV appearance and a whole lot of enthusiasm has us here at ViewNZ jotting down the famous Movember of 09 as an absolute winner.

Led valiantly from the front by ‘Pepe’ Mant the team was off to a focused start. Paul’s energy was unprecedented and he bought passion and desire to a committed cause. Everyone bought into team policies and directions and we all knew something special was on the horizon. There were good times, there were bad times, and our efforts on occasion certainly didn’t come easily. There were highly testing times facing the chaps, constant denigration from Sonia over our obvious drinking preferences towards Mochaccino’s at times weighed heavily. We took the abuse in our stride with the knowledge that we could not possibly get any manlier, especially with a Mo strapped firmly to our upper lips, yet also safe in the knowledge that we were so committed that we would not drink anything without ‘MO’ in the title. MOvember = MOchaccino.

Ben De Haan thought the sheer weight of such a campaign was too much for one man to handle and stepped up to the mark to lead by example like you wouldn’t believe. The All Blacks have many senior players who can help out the team Captain, our ViewNZ Movember team had De Haan. To be the best you have to beat the best and have a great team around you. What a man, what a player.

Nik toiled tirelessly in the tight, he’s not a noisy team member but nothing but 100% can be expected from Nik – 84% for effort, 16% for execution. That said, when challengers came at us Nik was a rock and had the faith of all of us here at ViewNZ. A sensational effort from the young man, do not mistake him as an unsung hero – some may say he was the rock.

Stepping into the big leagues was always going to be a challenge for Sam, being the youngest in the side the closest he had come to having a Mo before Movember was an over aggressive sneeze back in 1994. See Nik re: effort but bump it down slightly for execution. The best news in this scenario is that you have to start somewhere and you can only get better. Hopefully.

Sonia was our harshest critic but I get there is nothing like a few home-truths to keep things on track. She was harsh but fair so we’ll keep her on as a Mo-sister. We look forward to repaying her loyalties as we become Fan…fans during Fan-uary.

ViewNZ MOvember Awards – 2009.

Points for: $ 8,585. National Team Ranking: 2.

Most Valuable Player (Excuse any puns): Ben De Haan
Player of the Year: Paul Mant
Most Consistent: Nik Shipkov
Most Improved: Sam Ward
Team Spirit: Sonia Sutherland.

It was obviously a huge thrill to fundraise over $8500 for Movember and help out a great cause. The campaign was led by Ben in the fundraising sense and he came out as Grand-National Champion. This resulted in another highlight of the campaign with Ben being invited into a starring role on ‘Sunrise’ on Monday morning to receive the recognition and kudos he deserves. Obviously Mo’s make anyone look cool but Ben nailed both the appearance, AND the shameless plug – for viewauckland.co.nz -  and we here at ViewNZ also think he has a future on screen. Another ironically beautiful factor to the situation was that we were in a head to head battle with Sunrise through Movember to see who could come out on top through Movember, ‘good effort’ but lets just say talks have  already started with Paul Henry and the Breakfast crew for the 2010 campaign.

We would really like to thank everyone for all the support we have received with special mention to Roger De Haan who stumped up an unbelievable $4,600, and both the UBS and Coutts bank in the UK who both came up with ₤1,000 respectively to help our cause. We had a huge amount of fun this month and both Prostate Cancer and Depression create situations that many New Zealanders don’t want to be in, but are confronted by on a daily basis. They are things that most people think they are immune to but they can easily sneak up. That said, there is a massive amount of satisfaction in helping an awesome initiative like Movember which helps so many people around the country. We said we would not stop trying until we had the top spot in the country and we came startlingly close to achieving so, even now there is hope for a further $10,000 towards team funds should 1000 people sign up to our new site here http://beta.viewauckland.co.nz/sign-up.aspx?returnurl=http%3a%2f%2fbeta.viewauckland.co.nz%2fdefault.aspx - join us and encourage your mates to do the same! The massive personal efforts of Ben helped get us right up there and it has been a great thrill to be a part of. We are all looking forward to getting amongst the 2010 campaign and insulating our upper lips once more.

Check out our team page and progress at:  http://nz.movember.com/mospace/team/ 

To donate, please click here: http://www.movember.com/nz/donate/your-details/team_id/24231

Once again, thank you all very much for support and banter!!

From the team at ViewNewZealand