Last blog of Hermien

Good day,

Fortunately, as I wrote in my previous blog, we started working at the factory again this week.

There has been no activity for 8 weeks, therefore there is a lot to clean and organize. We started working in a small group on Monday. The entire production that was done at home also had to be checked and stored. This was also done on Monday.

Furthermore, the Chichi’s sold online could now be packed and delivered or mailed.

Not everyone will start working at the factory again this week. With this measurement we want to keep the number of people in the workplace as small as possible. This means some will still work from home or partially work from home for the time being. For example, colleague Jade has an XXL Chichi (1.4 mtr x 1.4 mtr) in her house to paint. This will be on sale soon, so keep an eye on our website and Facebook.

Since a part of us still works from home, we had a short half online / half live staff meeting on Tuesday. Just to inform everyone about the current status and motivation for the new beginning.

The activities for this week are mainly cleaning, putting up all signs to tell everyone about hygiene and 2 meter distance measurements. Just like in so many shops, we will have one-way traffic in the garden and on the work floor. Serena has purchased face-shields for everyone so that everyone can work corona proof and the visitors / customers can come to us safely.

Unfortunately, no tourists are allowed on the island yet. That means significantly less sales for us and therefore less work. For this reason, we require flexible employability from all employees. And that has been going well so far with some struggles here and there. Yet everyone understands that it is important that we do this together. This means that everyone helps with cleaning, Judith (normally she sandes the Chichi’s before they can be painted) and started sanding and painting a wooden bench and Mervinia became our delivery person of Chichi’s.

The store in Punda is currently closed and our intention is to open here again from Friday May 22nd.

Hopefully we will soon be able to receive tourists again on our beautiful island and we will take this experience as a wise lesson and memory and then the “new normal” will actually start.

I enjoyed keeping everyone informed about our experience with Corona in these blogs and showing how we as a more or less tourist company on a tourist island deal with this.

Regards,
Hermien Visscher
Office manager Serena’s Art Factory