As I write this article, summer is winding down and the nights are becoming cooler. Although the Board of the New York Circle has slowed its activities over these months, the fall preparations have continued at a steady pace and, now that fall is upon us, multiple events await. On September 1, Eileen Brockbank, Lucy Gunderson, and Kate Deimling will participate in a panel discussion on taking the ATA certification exam.[*] Saturday September 14 will be Ellen Sowchek’s half-day workshop on good research methodologies for translators and interpreters. As far as our regular monthly meetings are concerned: on September 18, Claire V. Ferreira will conduct a training session on CAT tool MemoQ. A speaker on machine translation will be featured at our October 16 meeting and on November 20, Jonathan Medows, CPA, will discuss tax preparation and financial planning for translators and interpreters. October 22 is slated for a networking dinner, in response to the regret of some that member dinners are no longer a standard complement to our monthly meetings. Thanks to our program director Kate Deimling for recruiting the speakers and to our administrator Louise Jennewine for organizing the rooms. And thanks to Milena Savova, Director of the Department of Foreign Languages, Translation and Interpreting at NYU, for providing the venue. We have yet to establish a date and location for our December holiday party.
The other major projects occupying the Board at the moment are our Web site and outreach. The latter has been in hiatus for several months, while the former has been coming along steadily albeit with starts and stops. Gigi Branch-Shaw has shouldered most of the responsibilities related to the Web site project, but the consultation between her, the Board, and our Web developer has been continuous, and we are more optimistic than ever that we will have a new, sleek, and state-of-the-art Web site in operation by year’s end. There may be follow-up beyond then, but Gigi has vowed to monitor the implementation even if it extends beyond her term as secretary. I myself have been pushing the outreach since I see it as a crucial way to advocate for better working conditions and higher quality products and services. The interest in our giving a talk about our industry has not been overwhelming, but this seems to speak to the work we have to do to educate stakeholders on the vital importance of our profession to society. I too have pledged to continue my work on this project into 2015; the Board as a whole decided several months ago that outreach should be a permanent fixture of our association’s agenda.
As I stated in the last Gotham, Gigi Branch-Shaw, Paolo Modigliani, and I will leave office as of January 1, 2015. Yet we expect that the new Board will build on the current Board’s achievements. It certainly helps that we will continue to have an excellent administrator who has already established a very efficient managerial routine. Aside from basic maintenance, including checking our phone messages, sending out e-mail blasts, and reserving spaces for our meetings, Louise has become adept at ensuring smooth operations when Board members might be engrossed in other matters such as our broader vision. For example, Louise recently canvassed and found an ideal meeting space for our upcoming September Board meeting while the Board had all but forgotten that we did not have anywhere to meet! Our Nomination Committee, consisting of Martin Hoffman and Greg Gencarello, has made substantial strides in finding candidates for president and secretary. The treasurer position, it seems, will be harder to fill but Paolo has also offered to advise the new Board beyond his tenure. Kate Deimling’s term ends January 1, 2016, as will the one-year terms of the new treasurer and secretary under the transition to the new president/vice-president system (see my article “The Purpose of the New York Circle of Translators” in the last issue of the Gotham for an explanation of the transitional arrangement).
I hope you will take full advantage of our fall programs and I am sure that we can continue to do meaningful work together on behalf of our colleagues and clients.
Originally published in The Gotham Translator.
[*] We are currently organizing another exam sitting, but the earliest possible date for an ATA certification exam in New York City will be in January 2015. Nonetheless, it will be possible to take the exam at the ATA national conference in Chicago on November 8, 2014.
Leonard Morin 