Dear Member,

First up, apologies if you were eagerly awaiting your usual Bulletin yesterday. I hope you had some sleep. You may already have noticed there’s a slightly new look to CAB today. The white hot heat of technology used to introduce the new picture buttons above burned our fingers a bit.

We’ve cured the gremlins now I’m happy to report, so simply click on one of the picture buttons above to select the news for your professional sector. Simples.

Right…Accountant, Solicitor, Surveyor, Architect, Lawyer, Teacher, Doctor, Planner. All of these are long-established professions with their own professional bodies etc, and all are roles that everyone understands.

We are always keen to boost the profile of our work and ensure the brightest talents are aware of logistics as a profession. The problem is though, that ‘Logistics’ isn’t really a word that describes a job – it’s more a sort of action! And there’s the danger it sounds more like a branch of arithmetic, to go with logarithms and algebra, rather than a practical profession!

People can survey, teach, plan and solicit – and I don’t mean the very oldest profession by that - but they can’t ‘logistic’. By the same token you can’t become a ‘Supply Chainer’.

It’s unfortunate that many of us find our work stimulating, challenging, rewarding and even occasionally lucrative – but we can’t sum up our profession in a bite size word. How do we sell it to all those Bright Young Things coming out of Uni. or leaving school and looking to develop themselves if we’re encumbered with terms like logistics, supply chain or, heaven help us, materials handling?

There’s a word I love they use on the Continent: ‘Spedition’. It kind of means Shipping. Of course the word shipping in the UK is too closely allied to, well, ships, to be really descriptive. But I like Spedition.

It has hints of words like Expedition, making our work a bit glamorous sounding; we’re all Indiana Joneses on expeditions to exotic locations - even moving some TVs to Rotherham takes on a more thrilling flavour.....…...........more