First guests moving into Saxony House

Vancouver, Sunday evening at 11:30 p.m.: Hans-Jürgen Goller and Jens Ellinger, chief and deputy chief of Saxony House in Vancouver, as well as Mirco Meinel and Jörg Ullrich of First Class Concept from Dresden, responsible for the entire engineering and equipment of Saxony House, are standing in front of the Vancouver Rowing Club, waiting for the delivery of the 20-foot maritime container, when they see the first guests in Saxony House: half a dozen raccoons taking over the clubhouse! While animal lover Goller is absolutely thrilled, Jens Ellinger and Mirco Meinel react alarmed: one fears for the food supplies in Saxony House, the other fears that the droll bears might nibble on the electric cables, thus leaving Saxony House in complete silence and darkness.

While the possibilities to prevent such a scenario are still being discussed, a convoy with glaring red-blue and yellow warning lights turns the corner: it is the police escort with two motorbikes and a jeep and in their wake a heavy-duty crane as well as the articulated lorry with the container from Dresden. The police escort is necessary because, due to a low bridge passage, the convoy had to pass a one-way street in the wrong direction, which also had to be closed completely for the process of unloading. The question of the police officer in charge, whether the container had a "parking permit", is truthfully being answered in the negative. It would also have been difficult to obtain, as the Vancouver Rowing Club is located at the entrance to the protected Stanley Park. The officer says that that could cost a fine of up to $2000, if tomorrow a police officer came by. Still, he is so obliging as to permit the unloading.

And then off we go: in precision work, the 12-metre container with over 50 pallets inside and 15 tons of weight is being hoisted off the truck by the driver of the crane truck in order to be rotated 180° in the air so that its doors are positioned conveniently for unloading. As it is suspended in mid-air, one of those present asks: and what happens, if it falls off the crane now? Then that's that with Saxony House here in Vancouver, Mirco Meinel replies dryly. But another three endless minutes later, the container is standing just where it should so that the forklift trucks can best approach it. Relieved, the Saxons slap a high five and drive back to the hotel while a security officer parks his car behind the container to make sure that on the next morning everything that had been loaded in Dresden would still be there. Tomorrow morning at eight o'clock, the unloading begins and tomorrow evening the crane and the articulated lorry will come back to "temporarily store" the empty container 500 metres further away.

Today, on Monday, nine more volunteers, who want to work in Saxony House, arrive from Saxony and by Wednesday evening the team of 25 persons from Saxony will be complete.


fltr: Jörg Ullrich, Hans-Jürgen Goller and Jens Ellinger.


First guests moving into Saxony House.


In precision work, the 12-metre container with over 50 pallets inside and 15 tons of weight is being hoisted off the truck by the driver of the crane truck in order to be rotated 180° in the air so that its doors are positioned conveniently for unloading.