ACCORD is delighted to advise that it intends to re-open its Store and shops on a phased basis starting on 13 July. The plan is to open the flagship Store on Glasgow Road and the shops in the Paisley Centre on that date. The other shops in Johnstone, Renfrew and Barrhead at on Causeyside Street will open in the next couple of weeks.

“We are delighted to be able to re-open our shops” said Sheila Jack, Shops Manager. “It’s been a while since we’ve been able to do so and we can’t wait to welcome back our loyal customers”.

ACCORD’s shops have all been closed since lockdown started back in March. Coming back to the shops in July, however, will be a different experience for staff, volunteers and customers.

“We have had to make significant changes to our internal layouts and our shops’ procedures in order to comply with the latest safety, hygiene and social distancing requirements” says Alastair Crae, Director of Finance and Governance. “We would like to share this now with our customers before we open again.”

The following changes have been made:

• Our staff and volunteers will have appropriate PPE
• All retail outlets will have hand sanitisers for customer use
• Social distancing will be in operation at all shops with stewarding arrangements in place to ensure appropriate numbers of customers are in our shops at any one time
• Our cash desks/tills will have protective Perspex screens in place to safeguard staff and volunteers
• We will still accept cash payments although we can take and would encourage card payments in Glasgow Road if possible
• Donations will ONLY be taken at the Glasgow Road store and will only be taken on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays between 10am and 1pm for the time being
• There will be a dedicated drop-off point for donations at the Store with arrangements in place to quarantine all donations for 72 hours before being used – in that respect we would ask that all donations are appropriately bagged if possible
• There will be more stringent conditions associated with our house clearances and pickups (and deliveries)

“We have tried where possible to make our shops as safe as possible for staff, volunteers and customers. We hope that anyone visiting our shops understands this and will comply with what we are putting in place” said Alastair. “We also hope that our new dedicated Donations drop-off point at Glasgow Road will also improve our Gift Aid income as we hope to ask more people to sign up when they drop off their donations. We appreciate only one location is awkward for some people but hope people understand the reasons for this being necessary. It will be mandatory for customers to wear face coverings in ALL shops, so we would ask all customers to do so in order that we can allow them entry”.

Signs will be put in place at each of the shops in due course to explain the arrangements in place at each shop

“It’s going to be a new challenge for our teams at ACCORD but I’m sure we’ll manage. We’ve got a fantastic supporter base for each of our shops and we’re really looking forward to seeing our loyal customers (and lots of new customers) very soon. Full details on shop openings will be put on our website and our Facebook page.”