Singleton is celebrating its inclusion in the Guinness Book of World Records after notification today that the World Record attempt for the most people crocheting simultaneously is official.
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Armed with crochet hooks and yarn, a total of 604 people participated in the attempt at the Civic Centre on April 29 including Mayor of Singleton, Cr Sue Moore; Upper Hunter MP Michael Johnsen; and Upper Hunter Local Area Command Policer Inspector Joanne Schultz.
The final figure blew the previous record of 485 people out of the water, which was set by the American University of Nigeria in Yola, Nigeria in 2015.
The World Record attempt was the brainchild of the Singleton Crafters group, and organised with the assistance of Singleton Council as part of the Singleton Festival 2017.
Founder of Singleton Crafters, Tracey Franks, said the notification from the Guinness Book of World Records was read to the group’s meeting at Singleton Library today, and she was still buzzing with the news the record was official.
“The day itself was a buzz, it was a really good atmosphere and included people of all different age groups, the youngest person we had was five years old, and the oldest was 95”.
The group held crochet lessons at the library in the months leading up to the event, and visited schools to get as many people as possible hooking into crochet.
“I said to everybody beforehand that I’m not looking at the number of people who come along on the day; we’re already winners because we taught half of the community to crochet and we brought everyone together doing something that people usually think of as being outdated,” Tracey said.
“There were men and women, people of different nationalities and of all ages. People came from all over NSW – and we even had one person pull up out the front in a caravan”.
“I just can’t believe it; it was a fantastic day and now we are world record holders, it’s given me a great boost of confidence that we’re capable of achieving anything now,” she said.
The certificate will be framed and displayed in local schools before being exhibited in the Singleton Library.
Singleton Crafters meet at Singleton Library on Tuesday afternoons and Thursdays.