Board Meeting Highlights

From the Executive Director

Walter Bacak, CAE
walter@atanet.org

The American Translators Association’s Board of Directors met July 29–30, 2017, in Denver, Colorado. Here are some highlights from the meeting.

Final Budget: The Board approved the July 1, 2017–June 30, 2018 final budget and the 2018–2020 draft budgets. The approved budget is $3.32 million. This compares to last year’s budget of $3.18 million.

Upcoming Elections: The Board approved presenting proposed bylaws changes to the membership for their approval. The changes are intended to expand voting rights to associate members who are professionally engaged in language services and have been members for three consecutive years. All current voting members will be grandfathered in, which means they could drop their membership for a year, rejoin, and be able to vote. In addition, the Board approved presenting to the membership for their approval a resolution supporting diversity. Both the proposed bylaws changes and the proposed resolution will be on the ballot this fall. The elections will be held October 26 at the Annual Meeting of Voting Members—also known as the Presentation of Candidates and Election—in conjunction with the Annual Conference in Washington, DC. (Please see ATA 2017 Elections for more information on the proposed bylaws revisions and the proposed resolution.)

Date of Record: The Board set September 22, 2017, as the date of record for the 2017 elections. This means that if you want to participate in this year’s election you need to be a voting member by September 22. There are two ways to become a voting member: pass the certification exam or apply through the online Active Membership Review process (stg-americantranslators-staging.kinsta.cloud/membership/memb_review_online.php).

Revised ATA Election Policy: Over the years, ATA has been fortunate to have a dedicated group of volunteers to serve on the Board. In addition, these same Board members completed their terms and, with rare exception, never missed a meeting. It was not until we experienced two vacancies over the past two years that we needed to clarify how these vacancies are filled. In response, the Board approved revising ATA’s Election Policy to make it clear that a vacancy will be filled by the next regular election. The Board, however, does have the option to appoint someone to fill the position until the next regular election.

The Board meeting summary and minutes will be posted online once they are approved. Past meeting summaries and minutes are always posted online at stg-americantranslators-staging.kinsta.cloud/membership/minutes.php. The next Board meeting is set for October 28–29, 2017, in conjunction with ATA’s Annual Conference in Washington, DC. As always, the meeting is open to all members, and members are encouraged to attend.

The ATA Chronicle Recognized as Best Periodical by the International Federation of Translators The ATA Chronicle was awarded the FIT Best Periodical Prize at the recent International Federation of Translators’ XXI Congress in Brisbane, Australia. ATA President David Rumsey accepted the award. The award recognizes the journal that best promotes the professional image of the translator, interpreter, and terminologist in terms of quality, presentation, and relevance. The competition is open to any non-academic periodical published by any FIT member. A five-person international jury selects the award winner. The International Federation of Translators includes more than 100 professional translation and interpreting associations, representing 80,000 translators in 55 countries.