Saturday 30 April 2011

Third Taiwan Postcrossing Meetup /
第三次臺灣Postcrossing聚會

Taiwan postcrossing community held the third meetup on 23 April 2011. 23 postcrossers attended the meetup. Everyone enjoyed a day trip arranged by Taiwan Postcrosser Club on Facebook and National Taiwan University Philately and Penpal Association (NTU PAPA).

Because most of postcrossers in Taiwan live in Taipei, the capital city in the north of the island, it was not easy to organise an activity out of the city, and this discouraged some postcrossers in the south. To give everyone equal opportunity, the organiser of the meetup designed a day trip and hired a coach to take Taipei postcrossers to Taoyuan and to pick up other attendees from south at the Taoyuan Railway Station. The day trip consisted of visiting Taoyuan mail processing centre, a lighthouse sightseeing (the lighthouse was on the stamp issued last summer), the farmer cuisine lunch, and sharing postcards in the farmhouse.
The first stop of the trip was visiting the mail processing centre. It was the first time for the post company hosting this kind of internet base club. But with good communication in advance, the post company let us learn a lot in the centre. Everyone was so excited at seeing the backstage of the post office because every postcrosser was postal service heavy user. The amount of the postcards was a minor in the postal system and postcards were usually deal with hands, not by machine, though.

Chunghwa Post Company established five mail processing centres, Taipei, Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan, and Kaohsiung in 2000. Each centre cost the company NT$2 billions. The centres deal with ordinary post, while express posts go through local post offices directly. Therefore, all machines did not work on the meetup Saturday. Luckily, the Taoyuan Centre arranged a machine test. There were Culler Facer Canceller (CFC), Optical Character Reader / Letter Sorting Machine (ORC/LSM), Flat Sorting Machine (FSM), A/O Sorting Machine (AOSM), Parcel Sorting Machine (PSM), Material Handling System (MHS), and Management Information System (MIS).

The coach headed to a sunflower farm after the processing centre. Everyone enjoyed the lunch before going to Baisha Cape lighthouse. The lighthouse was the second tallest one in Taiwan. It was the historic site on Taoyuan county heritage list. The post company issued a set of lighthouse stamps last summer, and it was one from the set. The post company also issued a new postal card and the postage mark was it, too.

After all sightseeing, all postcrossers were ready to share postcards. There were too many things to do in the rest of three hours. They sold and bought nice stamps, exchanged postcards, printed date mark on the souvenir postcards, appreciated others postcards, passed and signed postcards, and talked, talked, talked.

Three hours happy time flew fast. No one had time to go to the flower field and it was time to go home.Hope to see you in the next meetup in Taiwan, and wish to have another meetup soon.

臺灣明信片交換社團在2011年四月23日舉辦了第三次聚會,共有23位玩家與會。透過臉書「臺灣Postcrosser明信片交換玩家社」與國立臺灣大學集郵筆友社的安排,每個人都度過了愉快又充實的一天。

因為多數的臺灣明信片交換玩家都住在臺北,所以要把聚會辦到臺北之外略有難度,前兩年的聚會儘管有中南部的朋友,最後也都還是辦在臺北。這次聚會的主揪特別費心把活動辦大,包了一輛遊覽車辦一日遊,終於把臺北人載出市區,也順利的吸引更多外縣市的片友。聚會行程有:參觀桃園郵件處理中心、民國99年版燈塔郵票主角之一白沙岬燈塔,最後於向陽農場花田小屋分享、交流明信片。

遊覽車在接到所有與會者後,第一站是桃園郵件處理中心。雖然風景明信片的處理多以手銷為主,和郵件處理中心中的機器關係不大,但是由於每位Postcrossing明信片玩家都是郵務的重度使用者,所以能夠一窺郵局的後臺秘密,大家都非常興奮。事前聯繫時,中華郵政公司表示是第一次有網路社團洽詢參觀,正因為是第一次,所以我努力扮演好認真的網友,跟郵政公司再三確認,讓每位片友都賓至如歸,也對郵務更加了解。

中華郵政公司於民國89年斥資新臺幣近百億成立了五間郵件處理中心(臺北、桃園、台中、台南、高雄),主要處理普通函件與包裹。因此聚會的週末日子,並沒有運作。不過處理中心特別安排了作業員進行測試,讓每位片友觀摩到郵件處理的流程。郵件在進到處理中心後,先經過分類理信銷票機CFC銷戳分類,再到光學辨識分揀機OCR按照郵遞區號分揀,一小時就可以處理完三萬件的郵件了。包裹類的郵件,則是在下一樓分揀,經過人工鍵入郵遞區號後,會以輸送帶送上傾斜式(Tilter)轉盤,再分到四十格集貨區。分揀完畢再沿著滑道滑入一樓的箱框裝載系統,送上籃車完成整個流程。每位片友對於郵件在機器中咻咻咻的運作,都驚嘆不已。除了找到自己家鄉的信件分揀格,也不斷地拍照、留念。一個小時的簡報、參觀時間一下就過去了,每個人都意猶未盡。
不過不管在怎麼沉浸在郵局中,也要趕往下個行程。大家先在農場用過農村風味餐後,先去欣賞白沙岬燈塔,這是全臺第二高的燈塔,也是民國99年版燈塔郵票的主角之一,更在當時被選為郵政明信片的郵資符誌,因此參觀這座燈塔,是個很棒的選擇。可惜事前沒有確認過參觀方式,沒有預約到團體入園,大家就只能在外圍欣賞拍照。

但也好在在白沙岬少耽擱了一下,接下來的重頭戲才能順利趕完。接下來就是各片友期待的交流時刻了。搭配餅乾與向日葵花下午茶,大家把想要出清的空白明信片拿出來交換,領取紀念明信片、加蓋日期與地址戳,欣賞他人的收藏、販賣購買可愛的郵票,分享明信片購買資訊、寄收明信片甘苦談等等。最刺激的就數最後壓軸的明信片傳簽活動,所有的片友座位上,依序傳簽所有人的聚會明信片,還有要寄給外國Postcrosser的PC官片,既熱鬧又有效率。


  © Blogger template 'Minimalist G' by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008

Back to TOP