FIT North America – Mini report for the FIT Council meeting on October 25th, 2022
Last month on September 7th, Bill Rivers, Chair of FIT North America, announced the results of the election of new officers:
Tania Therien, Secretary (bottom)
Tania Therien is a writer, editor, and translator with an MA in history from the University of Calgary and an MFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia. She has been a certified member of the Association of Translators and Interpreters of Alberta for Danish to English since 2002 and is particularly interested in literary translation. Most recently, Tania co-edited and contributed to TransLit: An Anthology of Literary Translations/Anthologie de traductions littéraires, volume 12.
Judith Lyons, Treasurer (top left)
I am an independent French into English Translator certified by the American Translators Association and specializing in financial and legal texts. I served for four years as Treasurer of the New England Translators Association [NETA], a FIT member. Prior to becoming a translator, I worked in banking.
Alan Melby, Chairperson (top right)
I am an ATA-certified French-to-English translator and an emeritus professor of linguistics. I have served two terms on the FIT Council. My interests include translation-related standards and philosophy of language (including the appropriate use of machine translation).
Report on the First Month of Activity by the FIT-NA EC
Since their recent election, the new officers, which constitute the Executive Committee of FIT North America (FIT-NA), have met several times via Zoom. The FIT-NA regulations require an annual physical, face-to-face FIT-NA board meeting. Presumably, these meetings will be in 2023, 2024, and 2025, each in one of the countries (Mexico, Canada, and the United States) that constitute the territory of FIT-NA.
Preliminary, informal discussions have made it clear that it will be difficult to gather the board, which consists of a delegate from each FIT-NA member organization, and the executive committee into one room for the annual meetings, because of travel costs.
It is very far from northern Canada (the Inuvik region) to southern Mexico (Chiapas), approximately eight thousand six hundred kilometers, while Copenhagen (northern Europe) to Madrid (southern Europe) is only approximately two thousand five hundred kilometers.
The current plan, approved by the FIT-NA EC to be proposed to the FIT-NA board for approval, is to modify the FIT-NA regulations to allow virtual participation by a member association that cannot send a delegate to count toward determining whether there is a quorum, so that decisions can be made.
ITD report
Alan Melby represented FIT-NA at the launch of the Decade of Indigenous Languages, which was organized by Translation Commons in collaboration with UNESCO: https://translationcommons.org/international-translation-day-2022/
Melby made a presentation about the need for a specialized, global directory focused on languages of lesser diffusion, which includes most Indigenous languages.
His presentation is available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpN9dvaNuWI&t=8s
Comments from fellow regional center chairs and Council members would be appreciated.
The FIT-NA EC has agreed to propose to the FIT-NA Board that Indigenous languages be one area of focus for FIT-NA during their current term of office. We will need to set up several committees and task forces at the regional level. We definitely plan to invite Sergio Alarcon, who was the other candidate for Chair of FIT-NA, to help with the work on our regional center.
Welcoming Back OMT
OMT (the Mexican Translators Association) left FIT for a while, pending the formation of a Mexico consortium of T&I associations. Melby was as the ATA (www.atanet.org) conference last week, where it has been hoped that there would be a physical meeting of FIT-NA. We had a room scheduled, but the meeting did not materialize (see travel challenges, above). Judy (the FIT-NA Treasurer), and Melby were there for the ATA conference in Los Angeles. Also, Melby was approached by members of the board of OMT, asking how soon their application for re-admission could be accepted by FIT. Hopefully, this will happen during the Council meeting on October 25th. They are enthusiastic about FIT and want to get started with FIT and FIT-NA before the end of their term in February.