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22^nd April 2010

Welcome to the team

Jana Meyer

Since 15th March 2010, Ms Meyer has strengthened our team. Having finished her apprenticeship with a very good result in the middle of 2009, and after gaining one year of work experience, she is now happy to meet new challenges. „I am looking forward to working with a young and dynamic team“. As a 24-year-old, living in an idyllical small town, she needs some variety in her job and therefore enjoys working in the beautiful Hanseatic City of Hamburg. “Especially during summer, it is nice to meet friends in the evening and visit one of the many cafés or sit at the Alster.“

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15^th February 2010

A most important day of the year – The Chinese New Year

Once a year, the Chinese people celebrate an important traditional festival that also affects daily business life in Hamburg. It is a festivity with a different date each year as it is based on the lunisolar Chinese Calendar. The festival usually falls on the second new moon after the winter solstice, a date between 21st January and 20th February. In 2010, Chinese New Year starts on 14th February – the Year of the Tiger begins. Not only in China but also in neighbouring countries, offices and factories are temporarily shut down for several days.

Before the festival starts, the house is being thoroughly cleaned, to sweep away any bad luck of the preceding year, and it is then decorated in red. The colour red in Chinese tradition stands for luck, joy and wealth. Juniors, children and students receive from their family red paper envelopes with money. The first day of the New Year is welcomed with firecrackers, started by the families to drive away evil spirits. In the streets, colourful lion and dragon dances take place which are supposed to bring good luck and fortune to crop and business.

Now what has all this got to do with us here in Hamburg? This, we will now learn from our two Asia specialists Meric and Bastian.

Meric:  Already weeks before the festival, we notice that our end customers get increasingly nervous. They are very much concerned about their goods not being ready for shipment in good time prior to the Chinese NewYear holiday.

Bastian: During this time, our customers contact us more frequently than at other times.  Several times during the week they check on the current status of their shipments.

Meric: The demand for shipping space is much larger during this period. Vessels are overbooked and containers are often being reloaded at the major ports, such as Singapore or Hong Kong.

Bastian: Same applies for airfreiht. Freight capacity is limited and fought over.

Meric: Here we have the great advantage of our long experience in textile logistics, so that we are always able to successfully master this time of the year.

After these busy weeks of preparations for the New Year, our Chinese partners look forward to enjoying a few days off. They use the time to visit their extended family who often lives in the countryside away from the city. A sumptuous and traditional dinner is held, and members of the family from near and far away get together to enjoy it.

On 22nd February this year, business will be resumed with new enthusiasm unless one is fortunate enough to be able to take an additional week of holiday.

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09^th November 2009

In-company training at TTH – You live and learn!

To a young and dynamic team, in-company training comes naturally. Such a continuous training programme may cover many topics, for example, growing demands within the global forwarding agency business, the charachteristics of electronic customs clearance, the important aspects of Customer Service, and many more. But not only those subjects, it could also mean improving and mastering a foreign language that is needed in day-to-day business to a large extent. In our case, it is the English language.

More than two years ago, the idea was born to work on the improvement of the team’s English language skills. Being a specialist for imports from Asia, the people at TTH have, of course, a lot of experience in writing electronic mails in English, a major tool for the daily communication with their Asian business partners. And whenever it becomes necessary to make a phone call  in English, they cope with it masterly. A good basis for enhancing not only the language skills in general but, at the same time, the verbal communication with the international partners. The young team liked the boss’s idea, which was immediately put into practice when a trainer for English had been found. 

After having just gone into retirement, Ingrid Kaschner took over the task to help improve the English skills of the young Team Trans employees. With her knowledge of English acquired in England and during her long professional life together with her affinity to Asia, where she had worked for several years, she started out to set up and expand the English lessons. Split in two teams, English training takes place once a week, an hour and a half for each group.

Diversified lessons
Lessons cover a wide spectrum. There are, for example, the inevitable vocabulary tests and dictations, grammar exercises as much as intensive reading of books and news, small talk and role playing, creative writing and wonderful self-composed poems. Now and then, even singing is part of the programme. The subjects are as versatile and international as the company itself. It ranges from technical terms used at forwarding agencies to English literature, from world news to presentations on English and Chinese culture, or even cities, such as Hong Kong or Hamburg. Mutual activities encourage the team spirit, one of the highlights being a visit to the English Theatre in Hamburg once in a while.

In spite of all the strain, the fun factor is not neglected. Fun and laughter are regular parts of the lessons. Although the English training takes place at the end of a long working day, everone always participates with full concentration and joy.

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27^th April 2009

New offices – and much more space!

Thoroughly planned and now completed! We have moved to a new address! The new offices are not a long way off, but house moving always involves a lot of work. Planning, packing, dismantling of furniture. Everything was well organised and packed safely, as is right and proper for a Forwarding Agency.

On 17th April, the time had finally come. The moving company’s truck arrived at our door. And off we went to our new offices.

The ride to our new building was fairly short. Everyone had very much been looking forward to the new, bright and spacious offices. All our space requirements had been taken into account, as all the internal walls were newly constructed.

The boxes were quickly unpacked and the furniture put up again. Inspite of the work load, everyone looked happy and cheerful.

At the end of the day, after everything had been unpacked and re-assembled, employees and helpers were treated to a delicious buffet.

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1^st October 2007

Team Trans Hamburg goes Hollywood

For several hours, a team from Norddeutscher Rundfunk television visited Team Trans Hamburg for a film shooting. Here is an excerpt from the film: