Christmas comes early for children’s hospice with new Guinness World Record!

We are delighted to announce Rainbows has officially been awarded the Guinness World Record for creating the world’s largest postcard mosaic!

Back in April, to celebrate our 20^th birthday, a team of more than 40 volunteers came together at Manheim Online Hangar at Bruntingthorpe to lay down over 40,000 brightly coloured postcards to create a giant image of a Rainbow which measured over 630m².

Originally launched by our Patron, comedian and Britain’s Got Talent Judge, David Walliams, we asked people across the East Midlands to help the hospice break a world record by sharing a photo selfie online or by writing a birthday message on a special coloured postcard. For months we were inundated with positive messages and fun photos. Over 7,500 selfies and postcards, including those from celebrities – such as David Cameron, Graham Stanier and Miranda Hart – became part of the mosaic design.

Speaking about the World Record, David Walliams, said: “I’m so happy that Rainbows have smashed the World Record! Having seen first-hand the amazing work they do at the hospice and the way they care and support families, this is the perfect Christmas present for everyone associated with Rainbows.”

Rainbows’ Marketing and Communications Manager, Scott Lea, said: “What a wonderful Christmas present! We’re delighted to announce that we’ve officially broken the Guinness World Record for the largest postcard mosaic. A huge thank you to everyone who sent in a postcard or a selfie.“ He continued: “We were pretty confident at the end of the attempt, but we know the criteria can be really strict, so to officially be told that we’re record breakers is absolutely fantastic.”

The previous record was 453.37m², created by students from The Camford International School in India. The attempt was coordinated with the help of award winning agency, Juice. The company worked with Rainbows to create a masterplan and helped manage the volunteers to complete the 30.05 X 21.22M design. The task itself took over six hours and 27 minutes to complete with teams working to a grid matrix, all of which was being filmed on time-lapse by Juice too.

Nick Taylor, Director of Juice said “We love a challenge!  This was certainly one of our biggest and more unusual projects.  We’re really pleased that it went smoothly and that there was so much coverage for Rainbows.  We hope it will help raise even more awareness of their amazing work.”

Scott, from Rainbows, added: “We’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone that made it happen – all of our supporters, volunteers, Santander, Opus Energy, Manheim Auctions, Smooth Radio and Juice, we really couldn’t have done it without them.”

To see the time-lapse video of the World Record attempt visit: www.rainbows.co.uk/birthdayrainbow