GLS Ireland collected more than 5,000 donated toys in support of Barnardos, which brightened up the Christmas of vulnerable children and their families.

Great joy for children in need: Numerous generous donors contributed to the Toy appeal of GLS Ireland in support of Barnardos, Ireland’s leading independent children’s charity.

The collected brand new toys were handed over to the children and families that Barnardos works with in their project centres. Due to the large amount of donations every family received gifts – and the children were left with huge smiles on their faces.

GLS Ireland supported Barnardos for the fourth consecutive year by providing its core competence – high quality parcel service. Donated toys were collected in the more than 150 GLS ParcelShops nationwide and from corporate donators and transported to Barnardos free of charge, all in time for Christmas.

GLS Ireland would like to thank all donators; your support made a huge difference to everyone involved!

In time for the prize-giving ceremony on 1 December GLS delivered the precious silver award trophies to Malta. More transport steps will follow.

The European equivalent of the “Oscars” was awarded to actors, directors, producers and other filmmakers in a total of 17 categories. Four awards were won by “Amour”: Best Film, Best Director (Michael Haneke, Austria), Best Actor and Best Actress (Jean-Louis Trintignant, Emmanuelle Riva, France).

The European Film Awards event was held for the 25th time this year and was presented for the fourth time in succession by the German actress Anke Engelke. Since April 2012 GLS is sponsoring the Awards as a logistics partner.

Three stages to the destination

About 2,700 members of the European Film Academy (EFA), filmmakers from all over Europe, take part in the selection of the prize winners. As early as September, GLS delivered a DVD package to each of them, with more than 40 nominated film entries.

Punctually on the occasion of the awards ceremony, GLS brought the silver statuettes from the London jeweller Theo Fennell to Valletta on Malta. At this point the figures were not yet engraved, as the names of the winners are only ever announced on the evening of the ceremony.

For this reason, the priceless cargo returned straight back to London after the event. On the evening of the awards the winners returned the statuettes to the GLS stand in the backstage area. Within around three weeks GLS will deliver their trophy to their doorstep – this time personally engraved.

Prizes across Europe

The awards went to artists from over ten countries: To Austria and France (see above), to Italy (director Bernardo Bertolucci, Lifetime Achievement Award), Romania (Tudor Giurgiu, Best Short Film), England (Helen Mirren, European Achievement in World Cinema), Denmark (Tobias Lindholm & Thomas Vinterberg, Best Screenwriter), Spain (Alberto Iglesias, Best Composer), the Netherlands (Boudewijn Koole, European Discovery), the Czech Republic (Tomáš Luňák, Animated Feature Film) and Belgium (HASTA LA VISTA, People’s Choice Award).

GLS will once again support the EFA in 2013 on the three stages of the prize giving ceremony.

Further information can be found on the website of the EFA. In the EFA Media Gallery you will find a video of the delivery of the prizes by GLS, under “Arrival of the Statuettes”: http://europeanfilmawards.eu/en_EN/home

GLS Italy invests in Milan in new main site and state-of-the-art technology. The new site offers more space and automatic sorting of parcels.

GLS Italy has consolidated its strengths in Milan and grown in size. Italy’s second-largest parcel and express service provider has moved into a new main site in the southeast of the city. The San Giuliano Milanese site is equipped with state-of-the-art sorting technology and has more space. Customers benefit from fast, reliable processing - both nationally and internationally.

Since August, GLS has been processing consignments here on an area covering around 12,000 m2. Parcels are sorted by a fully-automatic sorter that is able to handle up to 8000 items an hour. The conveyor system is installed at a height of 3 metres, enabling large packing pieces and pallets to be simultaneously processed at ground level.

GLS uses 60 ramps at the new complex for loading, with more than 13,500 m2 of area available for parking and manoeuvring. Moreover, international goods are cleared for customs, with a customs warehouse integrated into the site.

As the complex also has more office space, GLS is planning by January 2013 to bring together several units onto the site that were previously spread across Milan. The International division offices have already moved to the site, and GLS Italy’s head office will follow at the turn of the year. In total, 200 GLS employees will work at the new site, which is strategically located on the ring road connected to the city’s two highways and also close to the A1.

GLS and ZJS Express, one of China‘s largest private parcel delivery services, cooperate. Both companies will be feeding parcels into the partner’s network.

The partnership was announced during a press conference in Beijing on 15 August 2012. ZJS Express operates a network that covers more than 2,000 towns and cities in the People’s Republic of China. The main distribution centres in the fourth largest country in the world in terms of area are linked by road and air freight. Approximately 20,000 staff are employed by the company at more than 3,000 locations.

For distribution in Europe ZJS Express relies on GLS. Parcels destined for the European market will be sent by air freight from Beijing to Frankfurt or London. In the industrial centres of Shanghai and Shenzhen additional gateways have been set up and will soon start operations. Parcels for delivery in the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland will be fed into the current GLS network via London, all other parcels will be distributed via Frankfurt. The IATA licensed GLS airport office at Frankfurt airport will be responsible for the parcels and will ensure they are cleared by customs and distributed throughout the whole of Europe. The standard delivery time for shipments from China to Europe is three to five days.

In China already the GLS UniQue software and its scan stations will be used to handle the parcels destined for Europe. This ensures that all the necessary data for handling the parcels, such as that required for customs clearance, can be sent in advance. Chinese consignors will also have access to parcel tracking service throughout the whole of Europe.

The new partnership will initially involve the dispatch of parcels to Europe, but GLS will also be shortly passing parcels on from its customers to ZJS for delivery throughout the People’s Republic of China. The GLS Group also has strong partners in Russia, India, the Middle East and Hong Kong, who are among the top players in their markets.

GLS is building a new hub in Jihlava in the Czech Republic. The capacities in the country will be significantly expanded and GLS also strengthens its European network.

GLS Czech Republic's new hub in Jihlava is expected to replace the existing nearby distribution centre in October 2012. After this initial expansion, GLS will immediately be able to process twice as many parcels as before in the new facility. It can subsequently be expanded up to a daily capacity of 120,000 parcels, with up to 68 loading gates. A state-of-the-art sorting system and security technology according to GLS standard round off the facility.

The Jihlava site is to serve as national head office and as both national and international parcel delivery interface. Daily scheduled transports connect Jihlava with the GLS European hub in Neuenstein and with the distribution centres in Austria, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary. With the investment in the new facility, GLS adapts to the continuously growing parcel volume in the trade between Eastern and Western Europe. Around four million euros will be invested in the new building in order to provide GLS’ customers with a high-quality service in the long-term too.

The new facility will also benefit the environment. As part of GLS’s Think-Green sustainability initiative, all new buildings are constructed according to environmental criteria. This also applies to the new facility in Jihlava. GLS uses recyclable materials for the construction. The building is heated with a heat pump, reducing CO2 emissions and operating costs. GLS is also installing energy-saving technologies such as an LED lighting system. To halve drinking water consumption and costs, rain water is collected, stored and used as process water. After its completion, Jihlava will be the twelfth "green" location in the GLS European network.