National Council Committees

 What exactly is it that the NZSTI National Council does behind the scenes? While the whole of council meets monthly for discussions and decision-making, much of the work council members do is undertaken within the various council committees. This page will be added to every month with each committee featured in our monthly newsletter. Read on to discover what those volunteers do for NZSTI in each committee.

Got a query for a committee? Email it to info@nzsti.org 

Professional Development Committee

The hardworking bunch of volunteers on this committee invests many hours to develop and run a relevant and interesting programme of CPD (continuing professional development) events. This involves brainstorming topics of interest, sourcing presenters, designing a balanced CPD programme for the year, and communicating details to our members in conjunction with the Marketing & Communications committee and admin team. Often, the PD committee also runs a pre-event check with the presenters to make sure the event runs smoothly.

On the day, at least two PD committee members are on hand to host the event and assist behind the scenes with any technical issues, questions from participants, etc. After the event, the team edits the recording and makes it available to attendees, along with any other material that the presenter may wish to share (slides, resources, etc.). Providing our members with a relevant, interesting event every time is definitely a team effort.

 You will have noticed that our CPD events have become more frequent in recent years. Previously we relied on presenters volunteering their time to present PD to members at no cost to NZSTI. However, we are now engaging paid presenters in Aotearoa and from around the world to provide members with high quality presenters on a wide range of topics.

 We run these events for you, and it’s important that we understand what it is that our members want and need from our CPD offering. The PD committee welcomes any suggestions for future events. If you would like to send in a suggestion, email info@nzsti.org with ‘Professional Development suggestion’ as the subject.

Funding Committee

As a member of NZSTI, you can apply for a subsidy from NZSTI for professional development run by other organisations. When you apply, the funding committee assesses your application and makes a recommendation to the council. If you are granted a subsidy, we generally ask for an article or a presentation in exchange as sharing your new knowledge provides a benefit to our members. And if you know anyone studying translation or interpreting, we have funding available to them too!

You can find all the guidelines and application forms on our website.

Admin/IT Committee

This is a committee that never sleeps! It deals with everything relating to NZSTI’s IT (website, Zoom, email accounts, IT updates, etc.) and administration needs (new applications, upgrades, admin around PD events, etc.).

On the IT side, Admin/IT members liaise with our IT provider Stream and and our admin provider BPS to ensure our system is as efficient and user-friendly as possible. The committee frequently finds itself trouble shooting IT issues and adding new features to make the system more efficient. The implementation of the MBIE entitlement note system involved the committee overseeing major changes to the back end of the NZSTI website. It’s been fascinating (and at times frustrating) to discover some of the possibilities and limitations of our IT system.

On the admin side, the committee works closely with BPS to streamline processes such as membership applications and upgrades. The committee members also support the secretary with replies to email queries, if required, and liaise with the Marketing/Communications committee to proofread text to be published. As you can see, there’s quite a bit of overlap between Marketing/Comms and Admin/IT and the two committees work together closely. 

Membership Committee

This committee assesses all new membership and membership upgrade applications submitted to NZSTI. They look at the qualifications and supporting documents provided, as well as any other relevant information, and make their recommendations to the national council at the monthly meeting. Often, the membership committee needs to go back to applicants to ask for more information or clarification as applicants must meet our high entry standards and provide proof of their qualifications or experience.

Many New Zealand-based T&I qualifications offer a clear pathway to membership but a tricky aspect of this committee’s work is the fact that due to the international nature of our profession, many applicants hold qualifications from a multitude of different overseas institutions. This means that the committee often has to do significant research into those institutions to ensure their programmes meet our requirements.

Supported by our admin team and our national secretary, the membership committee does their best to process applications within a reasonable timeframe.

Marketing & Communications Committee

If you read our monthly newsletter, you already know one thing this committee does. Every month, they write articles and collate information for the newsletter, proofreading it multiple times before it arrives in your inbox.

Members of this committee also manage NZSTI’s social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn) to connect with current and potential members and keep an eye out for interesting news. They proofread event emails, reminders and other information sent out to members. And our website always needs pages written and updated, so they take care of that too. Of course they are also in charge of writing and producing any printed material NZSTI may require (brochures, member benefits sheets, etc.). And whenever we need to market NZSTI, such as at the NZAMI conference, committee members prepare the marketing materials and banners required for that.

Marketing and Comms also manages NZSTI’s Word for Word blog (under ‘Resources’ on our webpage) and is always looking for content, both for the blog and for this newsletter. Get in touch if you have something you’d like to share with our members — the comms committee would love to hear from you.

With all this writing to do, the Marketing and Communications committee is on the lookout for anyone who wants to volunteer some of their time and effort to help with the newsletter, website, social media or writing/proofreading in general. If you are interested, email us at info@nzsti.org, and we’ll find a task to suit you.  

Conference Committee

This committee is one that changes every year and is outside the national council, with our regional branches taking turns to host NZSTI’s national conference. It can include people already on the branch committee as well as local members wanting to volunteer their time and skills for this event.

There is a lot for this committee to accomplish every year. Their work generally starts in October with finding and booking a venue, choosing a theme and logo, preparing the call for presentations, and writing text for the website (https://conference.nzsti.org/). Subsequently, in the new year, they look through the presentation proposals and create a programme of exciting speakers and interesting topics. They are also responsible for seeking out sponsors, answering any conference-related questions, and of course running the actual event. 

In 2021, due to Covid-19 restrictions, the Auckland branch organised NZSTI’s first-ever online conference; and in 2022, the Wellington branch continued that trend. Both branches had to get to grips with the technical aspect of an online conference, but going online provided the opportunity to recruit some very exciting overseas speakers.

Whether they are organising an online or in-person conference, it’s a massive undertaking, and NZSTI is very grateful to those volunteers for their hard work.

International Liaison Committee

The purpose of this committee is to build and maintain strategic relationships with international stakeholders and bodies. It is tasked with:

• Liaising with international organisations, such as AUSIT, FIT and NAATI, and reporting back on information that may be of interest to T&I in New Zealand. This includes keeping up to date with FIT and AUSIT events as well as those from other overseas associations. This informs the work of the council and feeds into the news shared in our newsletter, on our website and on social media.
• Working alongside international organisations to continue raising the standing and profile of our profession and upholding professional standards nationally and internationally.
• Engaging with international stakeholders and bodies through regular meetings and correspondence and identifying opportunities for collaboration.

Examples of the work undertaken by this committee include signing a memorandum of understanding with AUSIT, collaborating with AUSIT to align our organisations’ Code of Ethics, obtaining NAATI’s support for the test preparation workshops run by NZSTI in New Zealand, and nominating NZSTI members to FIT committees and FIT council.

Complaints and Disciplinary Committee

Members of NZSTI agree to uphold our Code of Ethics and Code of Conduct in their work as professionals delivering quality services to their clients. The Committee’s task is to receive and consider complaints about members’ work and follows an established investigation process. 

When someone contacts us to complain about the conduct of one of our members or the quality of the work they provided, our complaints committee gets to work collecting all the necessary information from both the complainant and the member who is subject of the complaint in order to form a clear picture and investigate the complaint. (This sometimes involves an independent assessment of the work, a cost covered by your membership fee.) The committee then submits a recommendation to council on how to resolve the complaint in a suitable and constructive manner.

Clients are entitled to receive competent service, and members, who are highly qualified and take pride in their work, are entitled to professional review of any alleged shortcomings. Having a formal process for dealing with complaints protects both parties and assures clients that NZSTI members provide a high quality service.

Professional Recognition

The Professional Recognition committee carries out work to promote the status of the T&I profession and to uphold professional standards. It does this by:

• promoting NZSTI and our industry to increase the recognition and visibility of translators and interpreters; 
  
• engaging in public relations with government agencies/bodies; 
  
• advocating for greater recognition of our members’ professional skills and knowledge.
  
• ensuring good communication with educational institutions;
  
• managing relationships with other stakeholders; 
  
• gathering information for our members on projects that may impact the industry.

Governance

This committee’s tasks are to define, regularly review and update policies, guidelines and documents (constitution, bylaws, council policies, etc.) as well as council roles, and organise governance training and strategy meetings for the council. 

All organisations have governance tasks and operational tasks which, in an ideal world, would be performed by separate people. However, in many non-profit organisations, such as NZSTI, all tasks are performed by the same people due to the volunteer nature of our society and the way it was initially set up. Recently, an operations manager pilot trial was launched to work towards separating governance from operations in order to free up council members to focus more on governance and the future of NZSTI.

Komiti Māori

The purpose of this committee is to support NZSTI in being a good treaty partner, consult on questions relating to tikanga Māori, and provide a link with Māori organisations such as Te Taura Whiri.

SLIANZ

NZSTI has a close relationship with SLIANZ and this is maintained by a Memorandum of Understanding, the appointment of a SLIANZ representative to liaise with NZSTI, and discounted fees for SLIANZ members.