Hello everyone,
Every year for the past six years I have gone beard-free and bad mustache grown for the important cause of Movember. Every year, I hear from men suffering from cancers thanking me for helping people get support. I hear from all genders who have loved ones, friends, fathers, brothers, husbands, boyfriends who either are, have, or might suffer from testicular and prostate cancer in the future who want to do something about it today. This year, I want to focus in particular on Movember's work to prevent suicide, and get more men to reach out for both mental and physical help.
Globally, the rate of suicide is alarmingly high, particularly in men. Too many men are ‘toughing it out’, keeping their feelings to themselves and struggling in silence. The Movember Foundation is aiming to reduce the rate of male suicide by 25% by 2030, and I want to help them get there. Help me stop men dying too young.
This is a good reminder to myself as well as others: Quite a few of us feel we've been trained to suffer in silence, that weathering out physical or mental health issues is the way to do things. It isn't.
Talk.
Just as important - Listen. Listen when someone around you is struggling.
Just as important - Ask. Reach out if you see someone struggling and they aren't getting or seeking help.
Just as important - Take Action.
This year, the Movember fundraising will be conducted a bit differently.
You probably noticed that unlike previous years, we raised money for Extra Life in October for both DDO and Lord of the Rings Online, rather than just LOTRO. This year, we are raising money or Movember in both DDO and LOTRO as well. If you can afford to and wish to donate to both, that is fantastic. If you can't support both, that's fine. If you can't donate to either, you can encourage others to donate.
Incentives
Unlike Extra Life this year, I've been able to come up with a cool new incentive! This is a consumable that a few of you have been in some cases hoarding since 2012, and have asked for numerous times over the years: The Pork Barrel!
You place it in a non-public area. When struck, it explodes. Tasty Hams fall from the sky. It's pretty great.
If you donate and want to get a prize, you MUST fill out the following info and PM it to me on the forums here:
The name you used for your donation on the Movember page:
Forum name (or Twitter handle, etc.):
Amount Donated:
Date of Donation (if you know it):
If you donate at least $10, you will be entered into the various DDO Point drawings that are unlocked by the Standing Stone Games Team reaching certain milestones. If you donate to me or another Team member, it counts! $20 gets you a stack of ten Pork Barrels.
Group incentives:
$1000 - Five 500 DDO Point codes and five picks from the Community Loot List that will be randomly distributed to people who donate at least $10 to the fundraising effort through a random-number-generated drawing.
$2000 - Five more 500 DDO Point codes and five more Community Loot List picks will be randomly distributed to folks who donate $10+.
$3000 - Five more 500 DDO Point codes and five more Community Loot List will be randomly distributed to folks who donate $10+.
Individual incentives:
$5 - Forum Title of your choice, within the community guidelines. PM me with your desired choice. If you already have a custom title, I can add another!
$10 - Custom Forum Avatar - Let me know what you want your avatar to be, and I'll do my best to make it happen.
$20+ - For every $20 donated, you'll get a stack of TEN Pork Barrels! I am currently working with the DDO team to get these into game data in a way that allows me to make codes against them, similar to the way I do DDO Point giveaways. That's going to take a game update, so I won't be able to distribute these until December sometime (unless we do an update earlier and this gets done in time for it?) I will distribute them to you then.
YOU DO NOT NEED TO DONATE TO ME. Donating to anyone on the Standing Stone Games team counts, just get me your donation info so I can get it noticed.
To donate to the team: https://moteam.co/standing-stone-games
To donate to me: https://mobro.co/jerrysnook
Thank you as always for your support. It means a lot to me, but more importantly it means a lot to the people you help.
One of the things I like best about Movember is their financial transparency. You can get everything from an overview to detailed spreadsheets here: https://us.movember.com/about/money
I will also be working to do a Movember fundraiser on DDOstream on Twitch, and will probably make up some new mustache avatars in the near future.
Jerry