Chamber working with businesses to be Covid Safe
The Merimbula Chamber of Commerce is working with our members and local businesses to try and ensure that Merimbula businesses are Covid Safe. This will help protect our community, our business owners and staff, and hopefully avoid further closures and negative impacts on our economy.
Hospitality based business like cafés, clubs and restaurants are already required to comply with existing State Health Guidelines, but for retailers, it is voluntary to follow the recommended guidelines. At a recent online forum held by the Chamber, the committee and retailers agreed it would be good to see more businesses actively promoting being Covid Safe, to create a greater sense of safety for our customers and the community in general.
Over the next week, one of our committee members , Lee Salisbury will be visiting main street retailers to help them make their business Covid Safe. As a retailer herself Lee knows how important it is to stay safe, and keep her business open, so she can continue to employee local people.
Lee will be visiting businesses and helping them work through a simple 3 Step Plan which forms the NSW Governments, Safe Steps to become a COVID Safe business.
- Complete a COVID-19 Safety Plan
The first step is to complete a COVID Safety plan which is specific to your industry. You can find them here and there is a specific one for Retail and grocery stores.
The 4 page plan covers the Wellbeing of Staff and Customers, the requirements around physical distancing, hygiene and cleaning and record keeping - Register as a COVID Safe business
Once you have completed the COVID Safety Plan you can register as a COVID Safe business. As a COVID Safe business, you’ll be able to show customers that you’re committed to keeping them safe - Show that you’re COVID Safe by displaying signs
The final step is to show that you are a COVID Safe business by display the appropriate signs. There are a lot of different signs available, and one of the outcomes of the online forum was to try and get some consistency with signage, so the Chamber will be recommending businesses use the same signage.
Here are some links to the recommended signage
They Chamber have also had 100 official COVD Safe stickers printed and will give them out to any members business who can show they have completed a Safety Plan and Registered as a COVID safe business.
Chamber Vice President, Tania Dwyer who is a pharmacist at Dodd and Dwyer Amcal Pharmacy, said “We all need to come together to protect our community, and these simple steps to becoming a COVID safe business will go a long way to achieving that. I encourage all of our local businesses to get on board and support it. We are all in this together.”
