Establishing and Building an Organization
Preliminary phase
- Try to find other people who are also interested in translation and/or interpreting.
- Begin to organize meetings and/or lectures for interested colleagues in your city or region on specific and topical issues of the profession.
- If there is a college or university with a language department in your town or region, try to get it involved. Such institutions can often provide meeting facilities, contacts and/or speakers, and put up posters to announce your events.
- If you are primarily concerned with book translation, try to establish links with local or regional writers' associations or your national PEN Club.
- It might be a good idea to go on the Internet, announcing your events or your first meeting and explaining your plan to set up a group/association of translators/interpreters.
- Enquire about the legal and other formalities in your country with regard to setting up an association.
Establishment
- Try to invite as many colleagues as possible to attend the meeting to discuss the setting up of an association. Ask your colleagues to spread the word to other colleagues.
- Find energetic, committed colleagues to serve on the association's board/council in order to preserve the momentum of the founding days well into the day-to-day routine of administrative work. "Stars" can be useful for public relations objectives, but they often don't have the time to do the practical work.
- Try to find like-minded associations in neighbouring regions or countries and/or at the international level ("networking") in order to learn about events, developments, resources, etc.
Development
- Begin to organize further training events (1/2 day, 1 day) on specific topics at an early stage in order to interest other translators/interpreters in attending and becoming members of your association.
- Try to establish links with authorities that have a vested interest in translation/ interpreting issues (foreign ministry, ministry of culture and education, ministry of justice, ministry of immigration, etc.) in order to gain recognition as a representative professional association.
- Try to establish contacts with the media (for example on the occasion of FIT's International Translation Day) in order to raise general public awareness of the services that translators/interpreters can provide, as well as of their needs.
Last, but not least: Working for an association on a voluntary basis inevitably requires alot of goodwill and commitment. Don't forget to show your appreciation to thosecolleagues who dedicate considerable time and energy (and often money) to get a young association off the ground.
