Report on the AGM
by Kim Saxton

The year has come and gone, it seems, very fast. The end of ASLIA’s business year was celebrated with a fantastic turn out to the AGM. Over 170 people attended and we were particularly delighted with the number of Deaf people in the audience. We were privileged to have the AGM opened by the Mayor of the City of Melbourne, Councilor John So, who generously, stayed for the whole meeting. His opening address talked warmly of our association’s work and the need of interpreters generally within Melbourne’s community. He offered his congratulations to ASLIA Vic on being successful in receiving a grant form the City of Melbourne. This grant money will go towards future editions of Across the Board.

The AGM included presentations from ASLIA Vic’s Auslan Interpreter of the Year Awards Organising Committee. The event is well on track for next year with the venue and date announced. We also saw an enticing power point presentation on Darwin which will be hosting the ASLIA National Conference in September 2008. See the website for details and put them in your diary.

ASLIA Vic members voted in the new Executive and Committee for 2008 and thanked out going committee members and others that contribute ‘behind the scene’, for their contribution in 2007. We have a busy year ahead and have already had our planning day (see Planning Day summary).

The AGM concluded with a presentation by Indonesian (spoken language) interpreter, Vannessa Hearmen. Vannessa gave the audience a whirlwind presentation on her experience interpreting the sentencing for the Schapelle Corby drug trial which was broadcast live on Australian television. Vanessa and her colleague sat in a Channel Seven studio in Sydney with audio beamed direct from the courtroom in Denpasar, Bali. She spoke of the difficulties of this situation where the interpreter is ‘remote’ and where others are not particularly sensitive to the task of the interpreter. So that, as well as having to interpret for the sitting Judges, all of whom had quite different styles, they also had to grapple with the interfering, casual chatter of studio staff. She spoke of the effects of having to deliver such devastating news, 20 years in jail and of the surreal feeling of listening to her own voice delivering this very sentence (it also being broadcast over radio) when she was on her way to the airport to fly back home to Melbourne (Channel 7 working on a slight delay in telecast). Her talk also touched on how this ‘media event’ portrayed Indonesia as ‘other’, that is; different to Australia and how this affected the Australian/Indonesian relationship. It was a fascinating presentation not only because of the intensity inherent in this type of work or for the similarities in the difficulties faced by both spoken and signed language interpreters, but for its reflection on the cultural interplay between the two groups for which the interpreter works.

Finally, it is with pride that ASLIA saw its first use of a Deaf Relay Interpreter at its AGM. Chris Dunn worked as platform interpreter as did Nicole Maher and Sarah Sudweeks. Thank you Chris, Nicole and Sarah for you hard work on the night. We hope to see as many, if not more faces at the 2008 AGM.

Our AGM in pictures...

and celebrating
Across the Board...

HONORARY LIFE MEMBERSHIP AWARD
by John W. Flynn

At the very well attended 21 st Aslia (Vic) Annual General Meeting on Friday, 23 rd November, I was sitting quietly, several rows back, when I noticed Meredith Bartlett take the podium and begin speaking about a person who was supportive of ASLIA and Sign Language interpreting over a long period. She then referred to that person’s involvement in getting Sign Language accepted by NAATI. At that point she called my name and asked me to come forward to accept the ASLIA (Vic) Honorary Life Membership Award In recognition of his valuable contribution to the Auslan interpreting industry in Australia and especially to ASLIA Victoria. I was really quite stunned, having no inkling of the committee’s plans! I want to take this chance to thank ASLIA for its kindness in thinking of me in this way. As many of the readers will know, I joined the Adult Deaf & Dumb Society of NSW as a “Trainee Welfare Officer” in October 1950 thus making it, now, 57 years of involvement in the field. I was glad that Meredith mentioned NAATI, because that is one of the highlights in the history of Australian Sign Language (Auslan) interpreting. NAATI was established by the Commonwealth Government in 1977. It was for the testing of Interpreters who spoke community languages used by migrants who were not fluent in English. The Victorian Deaf Society, of which I was Executive Director for 25 years, sent me Overseas in 1978 to look at various matters including training and testing of Sign Language interpreters. On return, I found on my desk material about this new NAATI initiative. Although Sign Language was not mentioned as one of the languages to be tested, I persuaded my colleagues that we should get involved. After much effort, we persuaded NAATI to include Sign Language with the many other community languages. I was appointed to the NAATI Board. The first testing took place in Melbourne on 22 nd November 1982. There is much, much more to the story, but owing to space limitations I have kept it very short. I must not close before acknowledging that many of my colleagues played a part in the NAATI saga, not forgetting the Deaf Societies who allowed many of their staff to put time into this promotion of high standards in the Sign Language Interpreting arena in Australia.