It’s Friday 30th April and today would have been Sir Captain Tom Moore’s 101st birthday.

A few weeks ago Captain Tom’s family gave the nation a challenge. In memory of their father’s massive achievement in completing 100 laps of his garden and raising £38.9 million for the NHS Covid-19 appeal, Hannah, Tom’s daughter set up The Captain Tom Foundation and set the world the 100 challenge.

So what could a hearty team of volunteers at the Salt hill vaccine center do to build on the amazing legacy of a national Hero!

We set ourselves a challenge to

• Welcome and screen 100 guests in the car park,
• Signpost and park up 100 cars,
• Get 100 hands santised,
• Welcome and signpost 100 guests into the Centre,
• Wipe down 100 chairs,
• Hand out 100 ‘I’ve had my vaccine’ stickers
• Have a friendly chat with 100 guests

If you know me, you know that wouldn’t be enough! So the added challenge was to do

• 100 squats,
• 100 press ups,
• 100 lunges!

Briefing done, challenge set, the team were raring to go!

By 09:50 Andrew in main reception had already greeted 101 guests. Lunging was a step too far for our Andrew but a warm welcome smile was worth a ton of squats!

The car park teams knew they had the upper hand as they greeted and parked everyone before the team inside could even start their challenges.

So they had a target of over 100. In fact Don and Michael, over the course of the shift parked up 400 cars and spoke to 1500 people!

Murray and Boffy had Alison in their team who was well versed to my fitness challenges. By 12pm they had embraced the sumo and narrow squats and lunged to well over 100 cars each.

The amazing NHS Royal Voluntary Service volunteers Andy and Alan supported by #oneslough volunteer Paul took on this challenge like any competitive athletes do in the meet and greet area.

Never seen anyone so eager to squirt the gel. They all completed their challenges within minutes of each other with Paul pipping them to the post at 11.58, followed by Alan at 12 and Andy at 12.01!

Let’s move to the green zone! We had Sut, Jayne and Sam each focusing on a different 100. Sut was on 100 stickers, Jayne was on 100 wipes and Sam on 100 cheerful greets!

I even managed to get one guest in green zone to do 20 lunges with me!

The red zone had a war going on! A war of the wipes! Bindu and Florin were taking this challenge very seriously indeed. Each of them rushing to wipe down a chair before the other one had the chance to do it. Florin tells me he won but I’m sure Bindu might have something to say about that.

And I’m happy to report that I had 100 lovely conversations with 100 wonderful guests by 1.30!

So if you were at the vaccine centre today and wondering why all these extra fitness activities were going on... now you know why

A wonderful man gave us such hope and inspiration a year ago. If anyone wishes to donate to The Captain Tom Foundation, here is the link

https://captaintom100.virginmoneygiving.com/giving/captaintom100/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMImLfhx42m8AIVUNPtCh3KrwGLEAAYASAAEgI_pvD_BwE

#CaptainTom100