Hey North West Members,

It has been mostly quiet on the (north)western front, but there are signs of Spring coming through to brighten our days!

Here is the latest updates on what is happening in your region:

- Regional Meetings

Our last meeting was on Monday 12th January, minutes have now been updated to the North West regional group page. It was an event meeting with some call to action from the board.

Please join our next meeting for an update on Tuesday 10th March. This will be held online 7pm - 9pm and you can RSVP via the regional page here:

March 2026 North West Regional Meeting | Events | Association of Sign Language Interpreters (ASLI)

The Committee have a new update to share with the region in the meeting, do come along to hear the news.

If you would like to add anything to our next meeting's agenda items, please email them to northwest@asli.org.uk.

- New Members

Our regional members group is constantly expanding as we welcome those from all over the North West as well as colleagues from other regions, such as the North East.

Whether associate, student, or full members - welcome! - and we hope to meet you very soon. If you have any questions, concerns or feedback please email the committee and one of us will support you.

- Membership

All members! Please take note if you have not already done so, you need to log on to the new website, create a profile and add your up-to-date banking details to continue your ASLI membership.

We have 220 members listed for the North West Regional group and only 76 people have joined the NW group on the website so far. This means that many of you will miss out on opportunities such as regional specific training courses and news and these bulletins are now sent out via the website, meaning you will not receive regular regional and national updates.

You can join the NW group following the instructions below.

Log in to the ASLI website > Members > Groups > (scroll down) Regional Groups > North West Region "JOIN NOW"

- Communications

We hope all members are finding the monthly bulletins a useful source of information.

If you know of events, training, socials, etc happening in your area, pass this to us and help us keep other members informed by emailing the details to the committee.

The North West regional WhatsApp group if another way we get information to members, currently the group has 58 participants!

The WhatsApp group provides an avenue to receive information for those who prefer it to emails and checking the calendar. Just as a reminder, the purpose of this group is for the committee to send reminders, news, etc and will only allow one-way communication to receive information only. Any comments or responses will need to be sent to the NW Committee via email.

A reminder that phone numbers in a WhatsApp group are viewable to everyone in the group. For this reason, we will not add you without your permission. You can however request to be added to the group via an 'opt in' process. If you would like to be added please email northwest@asli.org.uk stating your name, number (most importantly) and that you wish to be added to the group.

Thank you to all who have emailed already, we have added everyone who requested into the group. If you change your mind at any time please let us know and we can remove you straight away.

ASLI Events & Training:

• ASLI Consultation Day

The consultation day has just taken place at the weekend, it will be exciting to hear what changes might be in the works since the event. Please to feel free to post in our regional group to discuss anything you may have learnt from the event if you attended.

• Data Protection Training 17/03/26

Training delivered by Noel Guilford on Data protection and how the recent updates in 2025 will impact us as Freelance Interpreters and Translators, to sign up see link below:

Data Protection Training | Events | Association of Sign Language Interpreters (ASLI)

• DeafExpo 15-16/06/26

ASLI will be attending the DeafExpo in Birmingham later this year, due to being a partner, ASLI members have special access to discount code if you would like to attend, for access to the code please email administration@asli.org.uk requesting this.

If there are any training sessions you'd like to see organised for the North West, please contact us with your ideas and we'll look to get these set up.

That's all from us for now, we look forward to seeing you at a meeting soon,

Leanne, Laura and Iesha (Wish)

(sent on behalf of the North West ASLI Committee)