The NWTN Committee looks back on 2020

2020 was starting so well, going to the cinema, to the theatre, to restaurants; to NWTN workshop and coworking sessions; to Spanish and Tai Chi classes… Then we entered a different world – for months!

I remember the warm spring mostly for country walks along the local canals. And the discovery of Zoom – online platforms saved us from isolation, NWTN Coworking became weekly Bake Off and I made éclairs au chocolat from scratch!

Bake Off became Working Lunch, and we continued to meet many NWTN members, old and new, to chat and to learn.

I became Chair of the Network during our first ever virtual AGM and attended the famous ITI Virtual Coffee Morning with Janice, Kate and Mike.

We innovated with a hybrid Boost Day, inter-network quizzes and launched our own Book Chat.

Thanks to Zoom, my husband and I will greet 2021 online with two dear old friends, after many a night chatting with them since spring. We even managed to skilfully squeeze in a visit to my mum in France between lockdown and quarantine.

So, bring it on 2021, we are ready to party and to face any challenges you throw at us!

Nobody could’ve predicted what would unfold this year, or that our popular Word Wizardry workshop would be the last full face-to-face event for the NWTN.

I’m so proud of the Events Team and what we’ve managed to do for our members in the face of such adversity: Bake Off and Working Lunch chats, online Quiz Nights, Janice and Laurence’s fun and interesting Book Chat, and last but not least Katell’s Take Note! interpreting skills event lead by Dr Rebecca Tipton.

Particular credit must go to Mike for his hard work and efforts in pulling off the hugely successful Boost Day on MTPE in September, which was the first time the NWTN has managed to run a ‘hybrid’ event combining face-to-face and online presentations. This event proved that we can really pull together as a team and achieve anything!

I’m hoping that we can run similar professional workshops into 2021 and beyond, following ideas from our members submitted via our survey.

Bring on the New Year!

Like most people I’ll be glad to see the back of 2020 but it’s been reassuring to see both NWTN and ITI functioning so well this year, with any number of Zoom events to keep us informed, trained and entertained. Peer support is in plentiful supply in the translation and interpreting professions!

It’s been good to see the Chair’s position handed on smoothly from Heidi to Laurence, and to see a new younger generation of Committee members coming into their own.

And after months of postponements, cancellations, changed plans and formats, it was a relief to finally see the 2020 NWTN Boost Day delivered in September, with a great deal of help from my colleagues.

My New Year’s Resolution is not to book a venue for any physical event until that pesky virus has been sent packing…

Happy New Year everyone!

At the start of 2020 I hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting anyone from the NWTN, but 12 (very strange!) months later I find myself a Committee Member!

Virtual meetings (within reason!) have been an unexpected upside of this last year for me, since, even in normal times, it’s difficult for me to travel to ‘in person’ events. I’ve enjoyed getting to know fellow members through online chats and quizzes immensely. I even read a few new books, inspired by other members’ choices in our Book Chats (La sombra del viento, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, recommended by Janice, was a particular favourite).

It has been a pleasure to welcome many new members to the NWTN and to see our network adapt and flourish in challenging times.

This year, as I shared my office with my stepson, nervously navigated the Wifi’s rush hour and learned to make the absolute most of the one hour fresh air window (running with a dog was a definite highlight!), I learnt a thing or two about resilience. But the main lesson I take from 2020 is that networking with NWTN members is key to my development, and the working lunches have been a particular enabler for this to happen.

Nothing is more helpful in times of crisis (and at any other time for that matter) than a group of fellow professionals with whom you can share tips, find support, moan, laugh and just relax with.

Andrea
Minutes Secretary

2020 has been a challenging year for me personally moving to Yorkshire and getting used to life on th’wrong side o’th’hill. It’s been fantastic to see NWTN colleagues online and have a bit of continuity, as well as meeting new people on the committee, and great to have such caring, supportive colleagues in an uncertain world. Here’s hoping for a better 2021 and beyond for us all.

This time last year, I had not long joined the committee as Communications Officer and was busy poring over pictures taken at various NWTN events in 2019 to find the perfect ones for an end-of-year collage. Although I haven’t had the pleasure of doing the same this year (I don’t think images captured on Zoom calls give you quite the same sense of time and place…), I did have the pleasure of compiling my fellow committee members’ thoughts on the year gone by, giving us the opportunity to take stock on what we’ve managed to achieve this year despite everything.

I think our array of social and professional events from this year have been well covered above, so I won’t repeat them. Instead, I just wanted to reiterate that a real sense of community has come to fore this year, both within the NWTN and our wider network of translators and interpreters, which has been a light for us as professionals in these otherwise difficult times.

Newcomers to the network have become regulars at virtual events along with those who may not have been able to attend in-person NWTN events in recent years, bringing together a good mix of people. Some have become such mainstays that it seems odd to think that we are yet to meet in person!

I look forward to working on new events in the New Year and sharing them with you. All that’s left for me to say is thank you to fellow committee members and NWTN members for helping the network to continue thriving this year, and I hope you all have a very merry festive season and a great start to 2021.