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Miami to break Guinness world record

Jenna Yates, For The Miami Student

(HANNAH MILLER | The Miami Student)

Miami University sophomores Kelly Muenchen and Neelum Amin are attempting to put Miami in the Guinness Book of World Records in spring 2011 by attempting the world's largest group hug on campus. They need more than 10,000 people to participate in order to break the previous record.

If successful, this attempt would raise money and awareness for the student organization, Oxfam Miami University.

Oxfam is an organization focused on social justice that hosts events to raise money to end poverty, according to Muenchen and Amin.

"Oxfam is a group of dedicated students that seek to end poverty by investing in an entrepreneur in the developing world, hosting awareness and fundraising events like the Oxfam Hunger Banquet and volunteering in the community," Muenchen said.

Oxfam's leaders intend to significantly increase the organization's visibility on campus next semester when they begin to advertise their world-record-breaking event.

"We're really starting to get the word out there," Amin said. "We're going to start advertising at the beginning of next semester."

The Guinness Book of World Records receives approximately 60,000 record-related inquiries from people who want to set or break records each year, according to guinnessworldrecords.com.

According to Amin, they are aiming toward hosting the event in April 2011.

"It will be a rewarding experience," Amin said.

So far, Muenchen and Amin have collaborated with their honors advisor, Kristin Burton. They also made a Facebook event, which has more than 700 people who said they would be attending. According to Burton, the associate director of the honors program, the girls are making a spirited attempt in tackling their objective.

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"They're really passionate about this topic," Burton said.  "I think it's a great idea. It's a great concept."

Burton said an event on such a scale would require a lot of work.

"This certainly isn't something that two or three people are going to be able to do on their own," Burton said.

According to Burton, this is the first project she has been involved in that is on such a large scale. Burton, Muenchen and Amin have started investigating resources and are putting together a list of community organizations to help implement the event.

"This going to be a huge-scale project — a scale that I have not been involved in before," Burton said. "It's going to take so many people to break the record."

Muenchen, who has some experience assisting with event planning for a student organization as a first-year, is confident the event will turn out to be a success.

Muenchen and Amin have never planned a large event, but said they are not intimidated.

"I'm really confident, otherwise I wouldn't be doing it," Amin said.

Muenchen and Amin co-founded Oxfam in attempt to create lasting solutions to poverty, hunger and injustice. In favor of raising money and awareness, Oxfam will be conducting the attempt at the world's largest hug in the direction of establishing their name on Miami's campus.

"If it works out, it will be a great way to raise awareness about our cause and raise awareness for Oxfam," Muenchen said.

While Burton is helping, she said the Muenchen and Amin are really doing this on their own.

"It's going to be implemented by them and I'm just here to act as a resource for them and give them guidance and help with anything they would need," Burton said. "They're really taking the leadership on this."

According to student body president Heath Ingram, Oxfam needs to coordinate with the student body in effectively racking up awareness across campus.

Ingram said the success of the world's largest hug would be based on the coordinators' abilities in getting the word out there and encouraging others to come. According to Burton, people will certainly be interested in participating once the word is out around campus.

"I certainly think that once we start to promote it that people will really be on board with participating," Burton said.

According to Ingram, it is important that Oxfam fires up excitement.

"The event will be largely dictated by the amount of effort the coordinators put into publishing the event and encouraging students to attend," Ingram said.

According to Ingram, communication is key.

"Turnout will be dictated by their ability to communicate with the organizations they are trying to reach to let them know about the event," Ingram said.

According to Michelle Martin Rosecrans, associate director of alumni relations, it is not only important to be a good communicator with organizations, but it is also important to be detail-oriented. In summer 2009, Rosecrans helped coordinate the world record broken at Miami University for the most couples to renew their wedding vows.

"I think you need to be very detail-oriented and I think you need to be a good communicator," Rosecrans said.

Lucky for Muenchen and Amin, Miami has a history of being in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Feb. 2, Guinness World Records told Miami the school had officially broken the world record for the most couples to renew their wedding vows at once. The event took place during alumni weekend June 20, 2009.

In spite of the event being effectively communicated to the participants, 1,087 couples came together to renew their vows, breaking the previous record of 624 couples renewing their vows in Pittsburg in 2008, according to Rosecrans.

According to Jessica Greene, one of the Miami alumni who attended the event, renewing her wedding vows with her husband was a lot of fun. According to Greene, she and her husband (who was also her high school sweetheart) attended the event with their two children. Greene, who married her husband the fall after graduation in 2000, said renewing her vows was a special time for her and her family.

"It was very special," Greene said. "I giggled because I said, ‘How different is this round of wedding vows? How different is our family from when we got married?'"

Some people came dressed up in their wedding day whites.

"It was really neat to see everybody who was either in Miami gear or some people got really dressed up and wore white," Greene said. "Some people had on dresses. It was really cute."

According to Greene, she and her family came dressed in their Miami gear.

"We both had on our Miami T-shirts and we brought our kids and they were in their Miami gear," Greene said.

If you are interested in helping out with this event or being a part of Oxfam, contact Kelly Muenchen at muenchkp@muohio.edu.


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