Babels-el Report 28.01.2006

Participants: Anastasia, Dimitris, Graziela, Lina, Maria R., Roula Skula, Georgia T., Juliana H., Anna H., Nancy, Vassilis T.

Agenda: 1. Pre-Selection & Travelling issues 2. Translation during the ESF 2006 3. The importance of solidarity accomodation for interpreters 4. Babels outreach events & contacts 5. Alis Big Test Event 6. Room with a booth + sit-prep

1. Pre-selection & Travelling issues

We talked about the very urgent need to start searching and booking the first tickets. In order to do so, we need every local coordination pre-selecting. We will send a message to other Babels European coordinations claiming short-lists to start handling tickets.
At the same time, we will start our short-list in Greece, sending messages to the pre-selected interpreters to get their confirmation and come to an actual figure for the Greek booth.

2. Translation during ESF 2006

We are aware of the fact that at other SFs coordinators have come to the conclusion that there is no need to have a present Transtrad, but we are also aware that there will be the need of urgent translations in locus.

We agreed in proposing to the Organizing Committee a limit of target or working languages (we suggest EN and FR) during the event and sending the texts to Transtrad to be translated to as many languages as possible in the weeks that follow the ESF 06. If this is the case, we would need a local emergencial Transtrad.

We also talked about writing a protocol on the conditions of Transtrad to work from now to May (essential but not yet understood issues such as we are not an agency, the limit of pages per day, deadlines, and organizing the quantity of translations per week or so in order to avoid people asking something for tomorrow).

3. The importance of solidarity accomodation for interpreters

Dimitris Oikonomides has written a text on how important it is to provide solidarity accommodation to interpreters.

Furthermore, there is a test accommodation form online (temporarily at the website: http://www.karousos.gr/gsf/), which people who may offer hospitality can complete electronically. People in charge of accommodation (Dimitris E. and Panayotis P.) will be then able to access the database and allocate interpreters.

4. Babels-el outreach events

At this first meeting we had two professional interpreters, Juliana H. and Vassilis. We talked a little bit about previous experiences at other forums, especially ESF in London, since Juliana took part in it, and WSF 05 in Porto Alegre, since Graziela and Roula took part in it. Besides general interpretation issues, such as how do booths work, how many people do we need, etc, vollunteers asked questions on interpretation, and we talked about the various projects (interpretation, translation, lexicons, etc.).

We planned two Babels events at universities. The fist one is to be held in the end of February in Corfu, and the person in charge is Roula S. The second one is to take place in the school of Philosophy in Athens, in the beginning of March. Furthermore, Georgia T., who came especially from Crete, is willing to start a Babels local group there from now on.

We’ve also drawn the new Babels material together with ALIS with ESF 2006 new date, the venue, and the address and telephone numbers of Babels Office in Greece.
Last but not least, we have been contacting key-people in Austria, Bulgaria, England, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, and Spain who work with Greek and know Greek centers, as well as Albania, Macedonia and Czech Replubic to call volunteers for action, strengthening local coordinations to prepare volunteers and continue political discutions.

5. Alis Big Test Event in Athens

We invited volunteers to take part in the first ALIS’s big test event that is going to be held -most probably- on February 19. We decided to have it as a real big event, inviting people, speakers and so on, in order to make it as concrete as an event at the ESF 06 is going to be.

6. Room with a booth for “training” + sit-prep

Volunteers were really glad about the opportunity to come to the office to have sit-preps. We also decided to keep having an agenda of various thematic meetings with different speakers as an incentive to mobililize volunteers; Juliana and Vassilis said they can help volunteers with practical interpretation tips.

7. Room coordinators

We talked about the issue of room coordinators. It is very important to make sure it is not a secondary issue, since their role is extremely important, especially for interpreters, since the latest don’t have to solve problems while interpreting. We decided to start talking about it from now on and that room coordinators should have a good notion of interpretation and not only starting being prepared five days before the ESF 2006. We are also to write a protocol on room coordination.

Babels-el

Anastasia L., Graziela S.