Richard J Smith & Co: Socially Distant

Ironic that we bring you our first social media offering after being socially distant on these platforms for such a long time, during a time when being socially distanced is now the norm almost everywhere!

We have not previously boasted a strong social media presence and have preferred instead to meet socially and professionally, to pick up the phone and to even continue with our postal newsletters every quarter. However, we won’t have been the only ones that felt the hole that was left by a summer of not being able to enjoy the cricket, rugby and other events that would have seen us keep in touch with many of you; we certainly missed the very many fundraising events and festivities that usually help us countdown to Christmas and most of all, we were sad that the retirement events and 60^th birthday party plans that were scheduled for Giles and Hamish respectively last year were not able to go ahead.

Whilst the nation endures a third lockdown and continues to ensure that they are maintaining their social distance from friends, families and colleagues, like most of you, we at Richard J Smith & Co have taken the time to reflect upon where we are as a firm and how we can adapt and try to use this unfortunate situation to better connect.

As a firm our priority was in ensuring that our staff are looked after, and we are now set up to work remotely when required with all of us becoming increasingly adept in using Zoom and the various other software and virtual meeting platforms that have popped up since last March. With this in mind and with the ongoing uncertainty around when we might be able to enjoy a return to real life contact, training, events, sport and maybe even the odd lunch, we have turned our attention to keeping in touch with you, our friends and peers for many years and our new social media followers in a bid to be less socially distant in the virtual world going forward.

If nothing else, the unprecedented events of the last 12 months or so have shown many of us the need to be adaptable, resilient and to make the best of the situation that we find ourselves in. As we prepare for busier times ahead and brace ourselves to assist businesses to withstand the twin challenges of Covid and Brexit, we hope that you will join us in our bid to jump into the 21^st century, and become less socially distant online.

You will find us online on both LinkedIn and on Twitter where we look forward to bringing you news, content and updates that may be of use. We look forward to continuing to work with you and hope that some social events may still go ahead this year and allow us to meet up with you again in person in the hopefully not too distant future. Until then, let’s see how this goes!