Newsletter
Newsletter November 2000
Sunday 1st October was the fourth anniversary of our partnership. However, the date came and went largely unnoticed, as did Monday 2nd October because the partners were on the road interpreting and the office was busy as usual no time for knitting those winter mufflers.
The first item in our newsletter heralds the birth of Interp.net. Together with other offices run by AIIC colleagues in other parts of the world we have set up a network with the portal website address www. interp. net, giving prospective clients direct access to each office in various parts of the globe. The purpose of the site is to facilitate access to qualified conference interpreters around the world. All Interp.net members are bound by the standards contained in our charter which appears on the site. Why not take this opportunity to visit Interp.net on the Internet?
Since our last newsletter the work we have been doing has centred mainly on our assignments at Expo 2000 in Hanover. SIMCONSULT recruited teams of interpreters for five Global Dialogues during Expo 2000. This series of conferences dealt with extremely interesting topics and all the events were attended by top-ranking participants. The Global Dialogues were about the world of tomorrow, the dangers and the opportunities of globalisation, bridging the gap between rich and poor countries, including the "digital gap".
Each Global Dialogue lasted three days and each day ended with a public talk-show broadcast direct on the Internet with excerpts being transmitted by various TV broadcasting companies. Wolfgang Klein hosted each of the first two days and Sabine Christiansen the third day. For the interpreters it was fascinating to see people communicating freely and effortlessly in very lively debates in some cases involving up to five languages.
It was indeed a pleasure to interpret for such a variety of well-known personalities such as Ricardo Diaz-Hochleitner, President of the Club of Rome, Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, Minister for Family Affairs Dr. Christine Bergmann, Minister of Justice Herta Däubler-Gmelin, Nobel laureate Kensaburo Oe, Peter Conze of the GTZ (German Society for Technical Cooperation), the Vice-president of Columbia, Gustavo Bell, the Vice-president of Panama, Arturo Bartuano, Joss Ocampo, Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations and many other dignitaries. SIMCONSULT organised a total of 217 interpreter days for the Global Dialogues involving English, German, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Japanese.
Another 24 interpreter days were taken up with the three-day women`s conference at Expo 2000 "Women Change Power", not to mention the seven meetings of the Expo Steering Committee each with four languages over the period from May to October.
In addition to the work in the interpreter booths the partners also had a great deal to do during the various meetings in terms of coordination, supported from the office by Susanne Schwarz and Evelin Jakob. Large amounts of preparatory material had to be sent to the interpreters (thank God for e-mail), hotel reservations confirmed, starting times of assignments coordinated, etc., etc. We even managed to take a photo of the GTZ team of interpreters which you can see on our website in this newsletter.
Of course there were many other activities running concurrently with Expo 2000 where we recruited teams of interpreters. The Centrale Marketing Gesellschaft der deutschen Agrarwirtschaft, CMA, organised the Food Forum 2000 on "Meat consumption, evolution and progress".
SIMCONSULT provided the conference interpreters. We organised teams for the Hans Böckler Foundation in Berlin, for Allianz Asset Management in Munich, for the UIP in Venice, for Mobil Schmierstoffe in Travemmnde, for "Worldwide Young Researchers for the Environment" the awards ceremony of the "Jugend forscht" Foundation, for the UITP Sub-committee on Rolling Stock in Hamburg, to mention but a few. All in all, a very gratifying year.
The only problem is that Susanne Schwarz is sensitive to the cold, winter is approaching and we havent even started knitting those mufflers. So if she sounds a little hoarse on our new telephone system in the office (please note our new telephone numbers), we all know why...
Looking forward to contacting you again in spring,
Your SIMCONSULT-Team