1,175 people turn up for Guinness World Record attempt

Everyone loves a good Christmas jumper. If you don’t you might as well stop reading this and go throw eggs at Christmas carollers you Scrooge (please don’t actually do that). In recent years, they’ve become more than a tradition; they’ve become an important charitable outlet, demonstrated perfectly by Luff students, staff and townsfolk this afternoon.

This day should go down in history. Hopefully, the 10 December 2014 will be remembered as the day Loughborough smashed a Guinness World Record for the most Christmas jumpers worn in the same place at the same time. We won’t know officially until after Christmas, but it’s looking good. We even had proper World Record officials and everything.

The current record stands at 639. We had 1,175 people gather in the newly built Shirley Pearce square and stand there in the cold for the 5 minutes required for it to be officially counted. I’ve not done maths in about five years but by my calculations, that’s like double or something, right?

The event raised over £3000 for Save The Children through jumper sales and donations. Christmas truly is the time for giving.

LSU President Rob Whittaker had this to say for The Epinal:

“Fantastic day, it was great to see so many student and staff come together for one goal to beat the current Guinness World Record… Importantly in true Loughborough fashion we smashed it! We managed to avoid the rain but still walk on water beating the old record with 1175 in attendance.

Congratulations to all those involved, it was great to work with the University so closely again and a special mention in particular and a massive congratulations to Sarah Haar for all of her incredible efforts after coming up with this idea.

LSU Exec hope that all halls loved their jumpers and have a great Christmas break before returning in January… Merry LSU eXec-Mas Loughborough.”

Speaking to The Epinal, event organiser Sarah Haar had this to say;

“It was absolutely wonderful to see so many members of staff, students and the local community involved in the event! Ultimately we’ve raised at least £3000 for Save the Children, which in itself is fantastic, and to hopefully have broken the Guinness World Record at the same time is more reason for celebration!”