Over the past year Holywood has witnessed a growth in community spirit, identified in many ways at our Town Centre community events, with an impressive attendance at Mayday despite the inclement weather, over 4000 people attending the first ever Culture Night with 100 local acts and over 70 businesses involved and most recently 5000 people in attendance at the switching on of the Christmas Lights. Many people have commented on how great the atmosphere in the town is at these events. These are exciting times.

 

Many organisations have come together to work in Holywood to encourage the building of a shared community, where people, local businesses, community groups, churches, schools and statutory agencies work together for the benefit of all. Part of this process is finding avenues where we can reinvigorate the Holywood Town Centre. Local Businesses Art and Home and Centra have joined together with Holywood Shared Town and Redburn/Loughview Community Forum to organise one more event before the end of the year.

 

During the switching on of the Christmas Lights one of the events undertaken was a trial run to see if it was possible to break the World Record for Christmas Cracker Pulling. Nearly 250 people organised themselves in a continuous line and pulled crackers simultaneously. The present record was set in 2011, stands at 566 people and is held by Vodafone in Dublin.

 

You can see the record here at the Guinness World Record Site - http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/4000/longest-christmas-cracker-pulling-chain

or here:

 

We believe we can break the record and that would be an achievement in and of itself but we want this to be part of bringing our community together just before Christmas with a purpose. We have asked the Salvation Army to collect in Holywood on the day so that our bringing people together will aid in the collection of funds to help homeless people through the winter but especially during the Christmas Period.

 

We are asking Schools, Businesses, Community Groups, Churches to encourage their supporters, staff, customers and parishioners to come to Art and Home at 1pm on Friday 21^st December and from there to enjoy themselves about Holywood Town just before the Christmas holidays.

 

For more information contact

Gordon Hewitt – Holywood Shared Town – 07545148181

Emma Bond – Art and Home - 028 9042 8168