NZSTI News
NZSTI Auckland Branch Annual Summary
NZSTI Auckland Branch President’s Annual Summary
If we look back over the year that is coming to an end, we can say once again, that NZSTI in general and the Auckland Branch in particular have been an active forum for Translators and Interpreters throughout 2011:
We held our regular bi-monthly meetings:
In February, on the day of the Christchurch earthquake, Dr. Linda Hand from the University of Auckland, talked about Interpreting in Speech Language Therapy Situations, particularly interesting, after the Oscar-winning film The King’s Speech has raised awareness of speech language therapy.
In April, Murray Chapman from the Auckland Chamber of Commerce came to explain what the Chamber of Commerce does and what the benefits are for translators and interpreters joining the Chamber within the new NZSTI group membership scheme.
In June , Auckland hosted the Annual National Conference, as always, the highlight of the NZSTI calendar, with a true international flavour this year with members and colleagues coming from Indonesia, Malaysia, Austria, New Caledonia and Australia.
In August, we had a panel discussion led by Marie Dai about the Translation of Official Documents and Agency Expectations, with representatives of Language Links (Yovanka Tomitch) and Pacific International Translations (Liz Sekizaki) as well as input from the Department of Labour (Nick George).
In October, Grant Straker gave us some insights into a very modern world of translating in a post-edit environment, and an idea what the future of our industry might look like.
In December, we had our end-of-year social function at the Hansan Vietnamese restaurant in Panmure, a very enjoyable event.
I would now like to take this opportunity to thank all our committee members for their contributions during the year. Without an active and enthusiastic committee we would not be able to hold our regular meetings. The current hard-working committee is our treasurer and caterer Michele Ryan, our wine manager Gary Holt, as well as Marlene Lu, Larissa Jivykh and Alberto Nadalini .
And what lies ahead for NZSTI in 2012?
Our next meeting will be in February. We are hoping to feature the NZ Literary Translation project for the Frankfurt Book Fair 2012, where NZ will be the featured country. Details about the meeting will be put up on the website in due course.
The NZSTI annual conference will be in Wellington on the weekend of 9-10 June 2012, the weekend after Queen’s Birthday weekend. The Call for Papers on the theme of "Translating and Interpreting – Celebrating Strength in Diversity" has been sent to all our members and is also available on our website under News and under Conference. It will also be in the pre-Christmas issue of Word for Word. There will be 3 streams: Translating, Interpreting and Literary Translation.
So if you have something to say on the matter and expertise to share, get in touch with the conference organising committee, who would love to hear from you. Further details will be put up on the website as they come to hand.
Also, if you have any ideas for topics or speakers for the Branch Meetings, that you would like to hear, or for any activities you would like to see NZSTI get involved in or do something about, do let us know. Your input is always greatly appreciated.
Finally, I trust all those who attended the recent Auckland Branch social received this year’s attendance gift, chosen by the committee, to remind you of NZSTI throughout the new year. Again, we would like to hear some feedback on the gifts we have chosen over the years, for example if you would like us to repeat a particular item “back by popular demand”, or what you did not like so much. Any ideas for the future would, again, be much appreciated.
I’d like to wish you all a very merry Christmas, a great New Year’s party, a safe holiday – and a wonderful and prosperous 2012.
Thank you.
Sibylle Ferner
Auckland Branch President
