Hello Everyone, just wanted to say a quick hello to all 299 fellow delegates! And a very big well done to the team on such an excellent sell-out result !
My name is Anna George and I am very much looking forward to the occasion as a Newky Newbie and completely new in Toon ! Naturally of course I am also eagerly anticipating the opportunity to catch up with colleagues and old friends from far and wide and to listening to many of the inspirational speakers on the programme.
I am not such a newbie to the translation profession though - having joined ITI shortly after its formation back in the late 80s upon my return from a spell working in Denmark. My personal route into translation was fairly conventional at the time and I was lucky enough to follow through a set of logical steps to get where I am today … having decided after taking A levels in my home town of Gravesend in Kent and then my degree in French and European Studies at the University of Sussex that translation was what I wanted to do I set about gaining Italian as an additional language by working in Rome as an au pair, followed by an EU stage, then onto the Dip Tech Spec Trans. Postgraduate Diploma for one year at the Poly of Central London … one of the top courses in its day…. This led to the training post in Vojens, Denmark for 18 months and the chance to add Danish to my CV.
Upon my return I feel I was in the right place at the right time to land an in-house post with a small agency in Basingstoke where I learned everything about the translation business itself to supplement my language knowledge. My employer wanted to expand so after around 10 months I was moved to Bristol to set up a new office there in October 1987 … and for those of you who know me the rest is history ! The move led not just to the setting up of the new office but it also brought me to a beautiful , vibrant, cultural, innovative and green city that I now call home. Three years in I was married to Jim who was a local lad and it was three years after that upon returning to work after maternity leave with our older son (now nearly 22!) that my freelance career as such started. I have always enjoyed and benefited from the wide range of languages I had acquired for translation into English as I love the variety that this also brings in terms of subject matter, so yes I am a generalist on the whole although I have a soft spot for medical translation.
My other potential claim to fame is my long-term involvement with the WRG, becoming a member shortly upon arrival in Bristol and having now served almost 25 years on the committee in one capacity of another. I have found the group to be a huge source of support in those early days of freelancing, and of many friendships over the years, and now I am approaching “the other end” of my working life I feel proud and privileged to be able to give something back now to newer entrants to the profession via the events we organise and the support we can offer.
Of course I have seen a great many changes over my career … I actually did my first ever job fresh out of the post-grad course on a manual typewriter ! So I have seen it all from Amstrads where you typed all in green and dial-up modems to faxes, e-mails, the Internet and Google.
That’s me really … I have a lot of interests outside the office that often between work, children, running the house etc. I do not always have time for so I will be looking forward as an aside to being a Singing Translator, maybe a spot of Yoga and also the trip to Alnwick on Sunday too !
Looking forward to seeing lots of you along the way in April !
