High school breaks world domino game record

(CNS): On Thursday, 30 June, around 600 John Gray High School (JGHS) students ended their school year participating in a record-breaking domino game. Maths teacher Ted Todd was the organizer of this fun attempt to break the record for the most number of people playing dominos in the same place at the same time and said he got the idea after watching some students play dominoes on the school campus. Previously 549 people were recorded as being the most number of people to play a dominoes game simultaneously on 15 August 2009. 

In a recent interview with CNS, Todd explained that he'd read in the Guinness Book of World Records that a Venezuelan group held the record and noticed how few people it would take to break the record. 

After getting permission from the relevant people in the Department of Education Services, Ministry of Education and the school principal, he got help from Brenda McGrath and Dr Sook Yin who organized the Bikini World Record from last year. “They gave constructive support in ensuring that I stuck to the rules as laid down by Guinness,” he said.

He then went out into the local community to arrange a small number of motivational spot prizes for the students who accomplished certain tasks on the day. “The local community was very forthcoming in providing officials and volunteers to help monitor the event,” he continued, “especially so of the Cayman Islands Domino Association, who provided such wonderful assistance.” 

Since the JGHS Assembly Hall isn’t big enough to accommodate that many students, Todd arranged a long, continuous line to ‘snake’ around the school, ensuring that there were no gaps whatsoever.

It has been confirmed that 588 students had played the game in a continuous line on the school grounds using about 200 sets of Dominos.

"More than anything, we achieved great teamwork. The students, teachers and business community all worked together to make it happen,” said Todd. He told us that team building is a very complex term for children to grasp since it implies sharing and giving of yourself without personal reward, but rather rewarding the whole group.

“This record was special because it involved the students being trained, coached and motivated to do all the right things at the same time and to do it to a set time. This they achieved, and many of the visitors and officials from the wider community commented on the fact that the students were all so well behaved, excited about the event and also clearly saw their own individual role to play in making the event work.”

Now Todd will have to submit documents, photos and video footage of the attempt to Guinness for them to officially recognize the record after studying all the evidence. He is expecting to have their response back in approximately three months. “I do not see any reason why in the future we couldn’t attempt another record of some sort. It was a very enjoyable and rewarding morning,” he said.

Todd is very happy for the students who broke the record because the idea was always that they should get the praise and reward while having achieved something unique. "Everyone in the school came together as a community to achieve something special and we did; everyone was very excited by it.” He feels that it should become a practice for other schools to break records as well to encourage and promote team building.
  
Todd said he wants to thank everyone for their involvement and support and that perhaps the Cayman Islands could become the centre of a record breaking industry in the name of teamwork and togetherness.

16-year-old Ashleigh Hydes is a CNS summer intern.