Relocating the office (even if only by a few floors - see page 8) is a great opportunity for a spot of belated spring cleaning. During this process I found a lot of items for which the reasons for retaining them are lost in the mists of time: the pile of unused business card holders from a conference a few years back; notes from a forgotten meeting with a colleague who has long since moved on; an out-of-date timetable for a train line I'm pretty sure I've never travelled on ....
But back-up one item, because I do remember that meeting. It was about the business case for a Single Window, which led to the current cross-government project. Which makes me pause to look more closely at the pile in front of me and I find more papers, each connected to another of SITPRO's achievements, because although international trade seems to move slowly sometimes, we seem to have achieved a lot over the years. You can see for yourself with our new timeline at www.sitpro.org.uk/about/history.html.
Conventional wisdom tells us that those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them, but SITPRO’s past contains a level of success that I look forward to us replicating!
Return to SITPRO News: Issue 65, Summer 2008
