Perfect Colours customer Richard McCombe’s #socialdistancing stickers

When we supplied Matic Media with a new Colorado printer, we could never have imagined the important role it would go on to play in Scotland’s battle against Coronavirus. But company director Richard McCombe came up with a brilliant idea to help people maintain the correct social distance from each other – and has been supplying social distancing stickers to local businesses free of charge.

Don’t invade my space!

We all know that if we need to go out at all these days, we need to keep a safe two metres distance between ourselves and anybody else – but it seems that some people haven’t quite caught on yet. Richard McCombe noticed this on a trip to his local pharmacy, so when one of his sales team, Colin Sinclair McDermott, alerted him to the use of social distancing stickers in Denmark, he decided it was something his local town of Coatbridge was desperately in need of.

Richard’s pharmacist said, ‘I would take them right now! It doesn’t matter how much they cost, I’ve got to protect my staff.’ So Richard went back to work, fired up the Colorado and printed off his first batch of social distancing stickers. The round red stickers say, ‘Wait here!’ and can be placed on the floor at two-metre intervals wherever people need to queue, helping them to maintain a safe distance. But there was no way that Richard was going to invoice for them. ‘It’s my responsibility as well as everyone else’s,’ he says. ‘These will help people keep two metres apart when they’re queuing up in the stores.’

His local pharmacy was just the start. After printing off a big batch of the stickers, Richard went on a tour around town to all the local supermarkets and some of the local takeaway restaurants. Nearly everyone embraced the idea and one supermarket, Morrisons, already had their own stickers on the floor! One or two of the others were waiting to receive stickers from their headquarters, but were happy to make use of Richard’s offering until the corporate stickers arrived.

He even dropped some off at the A&E department of his local hospital, who received them gratefully and appreciated his efforts.

So, at a time when we really all need to pull together, while obviously staying apart, this was a brilliant initiative. By keeping your distance, you’ll be helping to save lives and take the pressure of the NHS.

Thank you, Richard, and thank you, Matic Media.

Note* - Post updated and corrected August 2022

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