It is probably safe to say that most blokes don’t mind checking in for lunch or a drink with their mates.
It is probably safe to also predict that fewer are keen to clock in for a check-up on their prostate, bowels and other personal bits.
The point of the Biggest Ever Blokes Lunch, though, is to emphasise that both are important and both can be life saving.
On Friday, August 26, almost 1000 people will gather for the Biggest Ever Blokes Lunch, which aims to raise men’s awareness of their own health and the simple steps they can take to help protect themselves.
In a sense, the venue for the lunch, the Museum of Vehicle Evolution, or MOVE, which charts the evolution of the motor vehicle, reflects the biggest lunch, an evolving awareness and willingness for men to talk about their health and to encourage others to do so.
Chris McPherson, an owner of McPherson Media Group, publishers of the News, started Shepparton’s Biggest Ever Blokes Lunch after being diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2009. He passed away in December 2015.
His mate and current chairman of the organising committee, Shane O’Sullivan, said the absence of his friend from the stage on Friday, as well as another founding committee member, Laurie Gleeson, who lost his battle in January 2015, is the clearest possible statement of the importance of the message.
“I was lucky, I had asthma and I had a mature aged doctor, who said, ‘While you’re here you may as well have some blood tests’ and I said, ‘Oh shit, what does that mean?’.
“I went to the first lunch at the showgrounds in the marquee that Chris had, I took a table of my staff, and the next year, I had been diagnosed a month before the event, and the next year, I was up on stage. Chris interviewed myself and Laurie Gleeson. Laurie was the managing director of GV Water.
“And a year after that, I was on stage by myself. They both passed away the same year.”
“Surely to God they're gonna get that message. Here am I standing here by myself. ‘Remember last year guys?’,” Mr O’Sullivan said.
However, he said too often, life’s responsibilities and tasks get in the way of men following through on plans to get tested.
“A lot of them come up to me and say, ‘How’s your health?’ It was 2010 when I had mine (prostate) out. ‘I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. How did your blood test go?’ ‘Oh, yeah, I was going to do that’. ‘That's what today's for’.
“Let's talk openly about it and your mental health and wellbeing and that sort of thing.
“I could probably stand up in that room. You'd get 20 per cent that have had or got prostate cancer. That is 100 to 200 people. Two hundred blokes in that room.”
The Georgopoulos family, from Shepparton, was another to be touched by the loss of a beloved member when in 2016 James died from bowel cancer aged just 25.
The family and its network of friends and business associates help finance a bowel cancer specialist nurse in a funding arrangement that includes GV Health, Bowel Cancer Australia and Shepparton’s Biggest Ever Blokes Lunch.
Money raised from the Biggest Ever Blokes Lunch also funds a prostate cancer specialist nurse at GV Health in Shepparton.
These arrangements, and others funded by the growing network of Biggest Blokes Lunches around the country are improving access to quality treatment and patient care in regional Australia, and the Shepparton region in particular.
This year’s lunch is already booked out with a monster raffle, auction and keynote speaker, Olympic gold medallist Kieren Perkins, to be supported by comedian Dave O’Neil and Des Dowling as emcee.
Chris McPherson was awarded Volunteer of the Year at the National Awards for Excellence in Fundraising in 2015 for his efforts in getting the Biggest Ever Blokes Lunch off the ground, but for Mr O’Sullivan his influence reaches beyond that into a far more personal sphere.
“So I rang him and I said, ‘Shit, I’ve been diagnosed? What do I do?’ ‘Get the f**king thing out or you'll finish up like me’,’’ Mr O’Sullivan said.
“So that's what I did. It's life, it's real,” he said.