Boston, MA
October 29, 2011
The Administrator of ATA’s German Language Division, Ruth Gentes Krawczyk, called the meeting to order at 10:00 a.m.
Agenda approval and corrections
The assembled members approved the agenda of the present meeting and the minutes of the previous year’s meeting with one minor correction. Regarding the GLD list, ‘there have been as many as 1055 contributions in a single day’ was changed to indicate ‘1055 contributions in a single month.’
Karen Leube reminded the meeting of the upcoming BDÜ conference and the impending deadline for submitting proposals for presentations.
Ms. Gentes Krawczyk discussed presentation proposals, guest speakers, and this year’s German sessions.
GLD website & blog
Michael Wahlster, who oversees the GLD website, talked about the progression of the website and the blog over the last year. There has been an increase in traffic. Member visitors to the website are up to 395/month on average. He envisions the website as a GLD archive and made a call for members to submit their conference presentations to be archived on the website. Mr. Wahlster announced that he is stepping down and will be replaced by Susanne Aldridge.
interaktiv
Matt Baird, chief editor of the division newsletter interaktiv, gave a short presentation of the changes over the last year, including changes in the team as well as in the layout – specifically regarding the new look and feel of the newsletter. The new team was introduced and the outgoing contributors were thanked for their time and effort. Kim Scherer volunteered to fill the remaining open position of co-editor. The members were asked to submit suggestions for future content.
GLD list
Gerhard Preisser, moderator of the GLD list, discussed key statistics regarding activity on the list over the last year. There have been nearly 6000 contributions to the list over the last year. The list now has 385 members, up from 368 in the previous year, 200 of whom are passive readers and roughly one-third of whom contribute actively. The list functions well and the member contributions are overwhelmingly congenial, but the goal remains to broaden the base of active members.
Ms. Gentes Krawczyk inquired about the success of the off-site reception held at the Goethe Institut. Members overwhelmingly agreed that it was a major improvement over past dinner events.
New Leadership Council & Nominating Committee
The new Leadership Council was introduced with a description of its function and role. The new procedure for nominating and electing division administrators was discussed. The Nominating Committee, comprising Susanne van Eyl and Ted Wozniak, is to select a single candidate for each position. As an alternative, there will be the possibility of an electronic election. This change in the nominating procedure was met with the disapproval of some members due to complaints regarding the lack of democracy. Linda Marianiello volunteered to serve on the committee. Frieda Ruppaner-Lind, an ATA board member, explained that the new procedure by no means rules out elections; the primary issue is a general lack of volunteers. Abigail Dahlberg moved to approve the Nominating Committee and the members approved by acclamation.
2012 Conference
Next year’s conference will be held from October 24-27, 2012, in San Diego at the Hilton San Diego Conference Center. Possible guest speakers were discussed, with the suggestion of a technical topic perhaps related to Silicon Valley issues. Other guest speaker topics included ‘Germany after the crisis,’ something related to the biotech industry with a speaker possibly from the Scripps Research Institute or a San Diego-based biotech company, ‘teaching bilingualism’ with a speaker possibly from the Albert Einstein Academy, and subtitling in relation to the film festival sponsored for the first time this year by the German American Chamber of Commerce in California, which is based in San Diego. The German American Chamber of Commerce in California was also suggested as a potential host for a networking event. The 2012 GLD event was discussed and the general preference was in favor of a networking event as opposed to an off-site dinner. A suggestion was made to find an agency to sponsor next year’s event.
A call was made for proposals for next year’s conference.
The meeting was adjourned at 11:00 a.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Michael Engley