This is the home stretch. You have a week left to persuade, plea, pry, and pester for pledges. Every little bit helps. The efforts in this last week will probably mean giving another child a life-changing wish.

You guys have done a really great job this year in promoting and furthering the cause. I am proud to wear this stache with such a fine group of young men.

See you Friday.

Stache Bash

Two words: dress to impress. And be prepared for a good time.

We will be descending upon Hooley’s Pub on December 4.  There will be half price apps and drinks.Plan to be there at 7:30pm. The festivities will start promptly at 8pm. More information can be found on the site.

Prizes

It is new this year, but we have prizes for the top fundraisers.A big thanks to Dennis from Make a Wish for pulling these prizes together. If you see him around on Friday, be sure to say thanks – you can’t miss him, he’ll be wearing a mustache.

And the prizes are:

1. Signed Daniel Briere Jersey.

2. Overnight trip to Calabogie Resort for two with 1 round of golf.

3. Sens tickets.

We also have a special prize for the sweetest stache but you won’t find out until the sash is presented.

Of course there is also the Kevin Janok Award for worst stache. Typically it goes to Kevin Janok – but there are some nastaches this year and with the right costume he could be dethroned.

Pledging and Dropping off money

This isn’t all that complicated, here is everything you need to know:

• Bring all your money and pledge sheets with you on Friday. Write your name on the pledge sheet. Have it totaled prior to arrival.
• Please write a cheque for the cash portion of your pledging. This is a nice-to-have and saves us a lot time and effort.
• Don’t include donations over paypal on your pledge sheet.  At the venue, we will have the total amount pledged to you over paypal.
• For those who pledged to you over paypal, they will get a receipt, we have their information.
• If you can’t make it on Friday, you have a few options:
  • drop off your money and pledge sheet to me during business hours at my place of work or on the weekend/evenings to my house – email me for the address and my mobile number
  • send money to this email address from online banking.
  • send the money through paypal on the site
  • mail checks to me. email for the address.

Published by the good people at mustachesforkids.org (the international organization).

Thanks to a couple early donations from some old time friends.

Word has it that Jose and friends at Joe Mama’s will be participating again.

Of course, the guys at the Clocktower will be joining in once again. Thanks to Bill and the guys at Bank Street and Brett at the Beechwood location.

Anyone that raises $700 gets a 20% discount on all ‘07 boards and gear!

Jose has also offered to provide some prizes for the finale bash on December 14th. A collective ’stache thanks goes out to Jose for this generous offer. Are any growers up to the challenge?

Joe Mamma is conveniently located right next to the ClockTower just on the other side of Pretoria. Even if you’re not able to raise $700 try stop by the shop and give Jose some M4K love.

No words can describe what you and your group of friends have done for our daughter Selena. I can surely say that Selena’s wish was truly granted by wish angels like yourselves and the make-a-wish foundation. Selena had a up close and personal experience with Sea World biggest star SHAMU real name Tuliqum. The smile on her face is one that we haven’t seen for quite a while. It’s amazing how the magic of a child’s wish could make all those long days and evenings at the hospital and with doctors just vanish away. She was able to meet all the princesses at Disney World. I truly believe that no words can describe the magic that you all put in Selena’s heart that she’ll will cherish forever. There are not enough words to describe the gratitude for the magical week that your group has given to our daughter we will forever be grateful.

So far things have been going great. Our turnout has been amazing. We even ended up having to modify the website to accommodate all the growers. I’m not sure about you but I have been overhearing some great comments from people about my mustache. Things like “wow”, “what the”, and my favourite: “honey, don’t take candy from that man”.

We’ve been receiving a few online donations through PayPal but this week at the meeting I’d like to take an “unofficial” tally of your fundraising. Something to put up on the site to keep us motivated. Something to show our progress.

And just a reminder that all remaining check-ins will be at the ClockTower. We’ve got the basement booked for the next two weeks, but just in case you don’t see us there check upstairs as well.

A rag-tag bunch of hooligans, our pool of growers this year demonstrated unmatched skills in both ’stachenicity and fundraisability – the two most important qualities to have when participating in Mustaches for Kids. As you can see on the right, we completely destroyed our fundraising goal of $5000 and as of this moment currently sit at a whopping $7340. I say currently because as I write this we still have donations trickling in from PayPal. Wow. Fantastic work guys!

I wish we could have crowned all 30 growers who competed (and those who couldn’t make it) as the Sweetest ‘Stache of 2006, but unfortunately that would take all the thrill out of seeing 30 mustaches go lip to lip in such fierce competition. All hail this year’s king mustache: young Robert Goulet (aka Mike Hollingworth). Mike just plain beat the pants off everyone else. What can I say? The man has an incredible mustache.

Check out some photos of the event! And if you have some photos of your own add a comment with a link so we can all share in the miracle that was the ’stache bash.

We’re about to get a lot less friendly with each other as we pit our mustaches head to head in an all out competition to determine Ottawa’s Sweetest ‘Stache!

While it has been nothing short of a delight to see so many loyal growers enhancing their already fine looking mugs with the addition of a mighty ’stache, I must admit that I expected this considerable square yardage of fresh lip carpet to be blowing the doors off the proverbial “fundraising house” by now. Not to worry though. It seems as though this week (now that our mustaches are becoming visible to the naked eye) we’re starting to hit our stride so let’s not lose sight of those kids that our hard-earned dollars will go to help (even if they don’t always appreciate or understand what we’re doing). To aid all of you in your fundraising efforts, I have created yet another fantastic PDF document to stand alongside the pledge form – the M4K info sheet.

I encourage all growers to print and post several copies in their home, at their place of work and at their local hangouts. It gives a little background info on what M4K is about and basically explains why on earth you would voluntarily and intentionally grow such an odd arrangement of hair on the face. Hopefully it’ll help break the ice and get those inquisitive minds to dig into their pockets and cough up some cash! Best of luck and see you all this Friday at the Honest Lawyer.