International Men’s Day Special

Making space for laughter - The Hundred 2024.

01. THEMES

Positive Male Role Models

This week, on Tuesday 19th November, marked International Men’s Day.

Each year women, men and over 800 organisations from around the U.K alone come together for a day to celebrate the contribution that men and boys make to our society.

The main theme for International Men’s Day 2024 - ‘Positive Male Role Models’.

Running alongside this core thought are three additional themes which feature each year with the aim of helping to maximise participation:

- Making a positive difference to the wellbeing and lives of men and boys

- Raising awareness and/or funds for charities supporting men and boys’ wellbeing

- Promoting a positive conversation about men, manhood and masculinity

International Men’s Day of course falls in the middle of Movember. Founded in 2003 by two mates in a pub on the outskirts of Melbourne, Australia, the Movember movement dominates the charitable landscape globally every November by fundraising for men’s health charities and the growing of dodgy looking mustaches (or ‘Mo’s).

Far too many men are suffering in silence.

02. STATISTICS

Ten Hard Facts

The House of Commons Library has a briefing packed with statistics about the wellbeing of men and boys as part of the House of Commons’ International Men’s Day debate in 2022.

The use of comparisons with women are for context reasons, it is not a competition between men and women.

(1) Prostate Cancer

On average, c12,000 men die from prostate cancer every year. This is 33 per day and one every 45 minutes.

Prostate cancer is the second most common cause of cancer death in males in the UK, accounting for 14% of all cancer deaths in males in the UK.

(2) Mortality

1 in 5 UK men do not live to 65.

(3) Suicide

14 men die every day by suicide in the UK (four in every five) with a suicide rate increasing for the past four years. Globally over 100 men each day take their own lives. The suicide rate in England is the highest this century. Over 5,000 men every year die by suicide across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland

(4) University Entry

In September 2024: 34,950 fewer 18-year-old UK boys started university in September than girls of the same age – 118,800 men (43.6% of total) and 153,750 women (56.4%).

(5) GCSEs

In 2022/23, 43% of boys receive Grade 5 or above GCSEs in English and Maths (47.2% girls). By 2019, boys have had worse exam results than girls for 30 years.

(6) Exclusions and NEETS

In 2022/23, 6,481 boys were excluded from school (69% of the total).

There are 493,000 young men (16-24) Not in Education, Employment and Training – 213,000 of which are unemployed.

(7) Rough Sleeping

3,214 men were found to be sleeping rough in Autumn 2023 in England. Men make up at least 82% of rough sleepers.

(8) Prison

There are over 90,000 men in prison – enough to fill Wembley Stadium. They make up 96% of the prison population.

(9) Domestic Abuse

751,000 men and 1.4 million women aged 16 and over were victims of domestic abuse in 2022/23. Men make up one in three of all victims of domestic abuse. 13 men died at the hands of their partner or ex-partner compared to 56 women. (ONS 2022/23).

(10) Sexual Violence/Abuse

275,000 men were estimated to have been victims of sexual assault in 2021/22* (798,000 women) . 1.3 million men in total have been a victim of sexual assault since they were 16. In addition, 7,000 men were raped or victims of attempted rape (132,000 women) in 2019/20. 57,000 men in total have been raped or been victims of rapes since they were 16.

*Oct 21 to Mar 22

Further information on a range of men and boys issues can be found on the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Issues Affecting Men and Boys and Men and Boys Coalition. These facts are useful to help supplement any themes that you adopt.

NXT45 - Calling Time on ‘Man-Up’ Culture

03. NXT45

‘When Men Live Happier, Healthier & More Fulfilled Lives…Everyone Wins’

Thenextfortyfive Limited was the first business I ever registered upon resigning from a 20 year career in the MOD.

It was early 2021 and we’d just plunged back into lockdown, the country was on it’s knees and we were all suffering.

I knew that I wanted to do something to shift the dial on the silent crisis affecting so many men in our society but I had no idea how.

All I did know was that I didn’t have all the answers and that I couldn’t walk this path alone.

And so I approached two friends who I was certain knew more than me about their respective fields of fitness, business, psychology and coaching.

NXT45 Ltd was born in April 2023.

We launched our brand and then set out to plan, deliver and execute a small magical event for men within 4 months.

Madness.

Many told us that it couldn’t be done and that the concept of a male only event without booze simply wouldn’t work. We ploughed on naively, fuelled by the mission that if we got this right we might just help one guy, if we managed to pull it off (without ((hopefully)) bankrupting ourselves in the process).

The Hundred 2023 was a success. We had delivered our first event, not lost too much money and had a blueprint for what the future might look like for this key part of our brand.

Over the course of the next 12 months we delivered a community events program consisting of a monthly online masterclass with an elite guest from the world of sport, business or health along with a quarterly in person meet-up at iconic venues including the AMT Headingley Stadium, Leeds and the The High Peaks. We set out with a price point of only £45 per month, as a means of making community as accessible as possible, but it became apparent quickly that this would not be sustainable in the long term even if we kept working on this project without paying ourselves (something we continue to do).

Lessons were being learned and quickly.

In July 2024 one of our co-founders left without notice, threatening not only our plans for The Hundred 2024 (which was scheduled for only 8 weeks later), but also the entire business as we had taken financial risks to put the event on. This forced both myself and Joe into making a big decision.

Absorb the additional responsibilities into our already heavy workload or walk away from NXT45 ourselves.

The latter option was never even a momentary thought for either of us and so we both committed to ourselves, each other and to NXT45 that we would work longer and push harder than ever before to deliver on the mission we had conceptualised only 12 months earlier.

To help men and to create better fathers, leaders, partners and friends.

Standing back in The Old Castle and watching The Hundred 2024 unfold was one of our proudest moments to date.

Witnessing first hand the power of collective conversation, struggle, new experiences and the sharing of great food was both heartwarming and fulfilling in equal measure.

We were trusted by the 60 men who chose to join us that weekend and we hadn’t let them down.

Both Joe and myself remain committed to the NXT brand and have seen the power it has to transform the lives of so many men already.

It remains a challenge to continue to deliver to the standards we expect of ourselves and those our community have come to expect of NXT45, especially as this is not our full-time job.

But deliver we will.

This is only the beggining.

Fuelled by the NXT45 mission you can expect to see another The Hundred event take place between the 5th and 7th of September 2025 alongside a new event specifically aimed at deepening the connection between men and their children. We’re hopeful that NXT Fathers will launch during the early May bank holiday weekend 2025 (4th-5th). You can register for early ticketing and event info by clicking here.

Creating a community and building a business to do good in the world is one thing but it cannot be successful without the support of others.

To all of those men who have attended The Hundred, who helped in some way, who trusted us from the get-go, who invested in themselves and took a risk and who are the talisman for so many more guys who need the support of an organisation like NXT45…

Together we will make a difference and change the conversation around men and men’s health.

You are all real-life heroes!

Thank you.

Mike & Joe.

P.S - Tickets to The Hundred 2025 are now on sale

04. QUOTE

“Remember when the next negative thought creeps in. We are not our thoughts, thoughts are not facts and we can choose our path to responding to them. ” – Joe Gaunt - NXT45 co-founder

08. TIP

If you or someone you know is struggling at the moment then here are some resources that are signposted to help.

Mental Health, Suicide and Depression

Samaritans: https://www.samaritans.org/

CALM: www.thecalmzone.net

Combat Stress: https://combatstress.org.uk/

Andy’s Man Club: https://andysmanclub.co.uk/

Children

Childline: https://www.childline.org.uk/

Family / Courts

Families Need Fathers: www.fnf.org.uk

Physical Health