From the Executive Director
Walter Bacak, CAE
walter@atanet.org
The ATA Board of Directors held its Spring Board meeting virtually April 24–25, 2021. Here are some highlights from the meeting.
Budget
The Board approved the July 1, 2021-June 30, 2022 working budget and the 2022-24 draft budgets. The proposed $2.6 million working budget provides an interim financial framework. Treasurer John Milan will work with the ATA Headquarters staff to update the projections and incorporate feedback from the Board. The final budget will be approved at the next Board meeting.
Proposed Bylaws Revisions
The Board discussed five proposed Bylaws amendments that are mostly housekeeping in nature.
- Codify that the president and president-elect are not ex officio members of the Ethics Committee. (This change is in line with Robert’s Rules of Order Newly Revised, our governing parliamentary authority. The president and president-elect are ex officio members of all ATA standing committees except the Nominating and Leadership Development Committee.)
- Clarify and ensure consistency in what requires a two-thirds vote of Board members.
- Replace “chairman” and “head” with “chair,” which is in line with our nomenclature for the volunteer in charge of a committee.
- Allow all individual members to serve on committees. (The Board will still approve all appointments to the committees.)
- Remove the use of “membership facilities” under member benefits. (This mention was a holdover from having a library. Members are always welcome to stop by ATA Headquarters.)
At the next Board meeting, the Board will vote to approve putting these revisions, and their respective explanatory commentaries, forward for approval by the membership at the Annual Meeting of Voting Members, October 28, 2021, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Certification
Certification Committee Chair Michèle Hansen and Deputy Chair Larry Bogoslaw updated the Board on the progress in getting online exam sittings set up. All is on track for offering sittings this summer. (We’ll continue to offer in-person exam sittings as well.)
Position Papers
The Board reviewed and discussed two draft position papers. The Board approved putting forward to the membership for review and commentary a position paper on remote interpreting. Once the 30-day comment period has closed, the feedback will be reviewed and incorporated into the final version that the Board needs to approve.
The Board then discussed the first draft of a position paper on best practices in localization and gave its feedback. The volunteers working on this position paper will take the feedback and submit the next version to the Board for its review.
The Board meeting summary is posted online. The minutes will be posted once they are approved at the next Board meeting. Past meeting summaries and minutes are also posted online at stg-americantranslators-staging.kinsta.cloud/membership/minutes.php. The next Board meeting is set for August 7-8, 2021. The meeting will be in person. The location is to be determined.