On March 15th, one of CLG’s venue managers, Jose Ortega of the Robert Burns Hotel, will shave his head for cancer. You can watch if you like! From 5:30pm onwards the Robbie will be offering free BBQ for everyone that donates to the cause, $5 drinks, and Spanish entertainment. And the ceremonious shaving of course.

Click here to donate! Or if you need some more convincing, here is what Jose has to say about it. 

“This year I am doing the World’s Greatest Shave. Let me start by telling you that I have been growing this fantastic head of hair since I was in my first year of uni and was only 18 years old. I even used to volunteer as a hair model at my friend’s salon, and I’ve had many styles over the years – but I have never shaved it off before!

So, why now? Well, in case you haven’t heard, The World’s Greatest Shave is run by the Leukaemia Foundation to raise money for blood cancer research and patient support. That’s a really good cause and I think that is reason enough.

My mum had cancer – breast cancer – and rather than travel that summer as I had planned, of course I stayed home to be close to her. She recovered really well, so we were lucky. Having said that, I don’t think that you need to wait for someone close to you to have cancer before you do something to help.

Since signing up to take part in the World’s Greatest Shave, I’ve been told lots of stories from people with close friends and family members who have suffered from cancer – and this encourages me even more. Blood cancers are the third biggest cause of cancer death in Australia. People with these cancers have lots to live for if they can fight their illness. I hope that fundraising for them will help to pay for expensive treatments and encourage some of them to fight even harder.

It seems that we all nowadays have such busy lives and not much time to help others – it’s all about me, never about us or we. Back in Spain I used to volunteer at the beach to help disabled people to swim, but I haven’t been able to do much over here apart from some coaching with young kids and volunteering with a Spanish Radio program. It’s time to do something else, to make it more about US, and so I say it’s time to be brave and shave!

–          José Ortega, Venue Manager at The Robert Burns Hotel, Collingwood