We are currently scrutinising the insurance renewal documents, which we know are a key member benefit and we take very seriously our duty to ensure the insurance meets our needs. It renews at the end of the month, when the updated certificates will be uploaded to the website.

We have been working with the BDA on their campaign and strategy for how AI developments in our field can be safely utilised, against a backdrop of political enthusiasm for AI generated translations being rolled out in the UK. We are attending the BDA special Alliance meeting in Derby on 20th May to make sure that our member’s views are included in this. You can read their statement here.

You will have seen that we are consulting on the Government’s Green Paper, which proposes changes to Access to Work and disability benefits, and we are delighted to be working with ATW expert Darren Townsend-Handscomb to help us formulate a really strong coherent response to the consultation. Have your say here

Our Training Coordinator has been really busy working to deliver excellent CPD offerings for members, and striving to ensure that these are effectively delivered. If you’d be interested to interpret any of our webinars or events, please get in touch! Also we have our flagship ‘Reflective Retreat’ coming up which is a whole new way of doing CPD - there’s only a couple of spaces left though, so be quick! We hope this will be a success and we can offer this again in more locations. 

Our GoingPro event later this year takes a lot of planning, and we are excited with the mix it offers this time. It isn’t just for people starting out on their training, it also has content for early career working interpreters. And who doesn’t want to go to Brighton in September for some lovely Autumn sun? Do you have your ticket yet? Book here

Our Consultation Day (minutes here) in March gave us more impetus to move forward with plans to improve how we engage with members. We advertised for two new paid roles to bolster our growing hub of freelance specialist professionals, and are delighted to have had high quality expressions of interest. We will soon be able to announce two new people to join us as Membership Officer and Webmaster. These are pivotal roles for us, so that we can improve our responsiveness to members and ensure our systems are working efficiently. We really hope you will see a difference in our work very soon. 

Alongside all of this we have been engaging with members on the SignPort proposals. These have not detracted from our usual work, as you can tell from the work that has been going on. SignPort is another strand of our ‘external representation’ work, and we are currently gathering member views on the proposed working relationship. See our FAQs here and join the SignPort group on our website here. We are planning more information and discussion sessions with SignPort, and the recent webinar they delivered for our DIN colleagues will be shared with members of the SignPort group. SignPort are making more resources for interpreters, but they haven’t moved as quickly as expected - partly because they really do want us to help them shape the system so that it works for us, but this means many questions on the technical aspects of it are not yet clear. 

We have some new Infographics for EDI in construction, so keep an eye out for these! 

We are very grateful to our members for so ably manning the stall at City Lit Deaf Day last month - thank you! Have a look at the photo in the email. Lots of great conversations were had on the day. Prior to this we had to design and order new merchandise, but it is a fine balance to be eco-friendly and also provide useful things for publicity. If you ever spot something that you think would make a great ASLI ‘product’ please let us know. 

We also worked with the NRCPD with a very tight turn around to ensure that our members’ experiences and views were incorporated into an important report that NRCPD were providing to the Coroner in the Immy Nunn case. Thank you to our Sussex colleagues for being so engaged in this work. 

All this ‘new’ work has been going on whilst our normal work continues. The beginning of the year is always busy as we scrutinise the budget to ensure that we can deliver the work we want to within our finances. This year we have spent time taking stock and ensuring that our budget is laid out in the way that we need it to be, so that we can properly oversee the activity. We want to be brave with our work, but have to accept that we have finite resources. We have also continued to represent the UK at EFSLI and WASLI, and supported our Regions and Groups with their fantastic work. 

Thank you all for your continued support of our professional association. We know you’re all busy people, and do appreciate the time you give to engaging with our consultations, feedback requests, meetings and getting in touch with us directly with suggestions or comments. Thank you.