Shipco Transport hosted a Global Agents Meeting in October 2008 in Weehawken, New Jersey.
With representatives from 58 countries, the meeting was truly ‘global’ and was the first time that all Shipco offices and agents had assembled since April 2000.
The guests had the opportunity to get together in the world-famous Shipco Bar in Hoboken on Thursday October 23rd. This was the first social occasion of the event but was followed by more serious business on the Friday.
Klaus Jepsen, Group CEO for Shipco, opened the proceedings with a welcome and key note address. This was then followed by presentations from other senior Shipco personnel.
With the formalities out of the way, everyone got down to the real business of the day – one-on-one meetings. This allowed Shipco offices and agents to meet individually, to further develop their relationship and, in some cases, start new working partnerships. It is rare, with such a diverse crowd, that people have the opportunity to sit down, face-to-face and with the buzz in the meeting room, it was obvious that much business was done that day.
Following a busy but beneficial day, the group left Weehawken for Liberty State House – a beautiful restaurant located on the banks of the Hudson River, overlooking the dramatic New York City skyline. The ‘global’ nature of the event then took a very American twist with the theme of the evening being ‘Country & Western’. As well as listening to some good old country music, the participants were given lessons in ‘line dancing’. Everyone had great fun with this but whether their dancing skills improved remains to be seen.
On the Saturday, guests had a choice of leisure activities – golf, shopping or a New York City tour. Unfortunately, the New Jersey weather was somewhat uncooperative although the golfers swear it was dry on the course.
However, the weather really did take a turn for the worse in the evening with hurricane-like winds and torrential rain – all the more unfortunate since the night’s entertainment was a dinner cruise around Manhattan. With that plan ‘sunk’, the group had to make their own entertainment in the hotel. This didn’t seem to be too much of a problem and, although it was not quite as planned, the evening was still a success.
Sunday marked the end of the two day extravaganza and while many participants were tired, all agreed that it was a fruitful – and fun – event. Let’s just hope it’s not 9 years until the next one!