Why

The membership of Yorkshire Translators and Interpreters has increased a lot recently, so our coffers were fuller than they had been in the past. With the Conference being in Newcastle, so almost on our patch, we thought it would be nice to use some of the cash in those coffers to help members attend the conference.

Who

The YTI Committee discussed criteria and decided funding should be awarded to members who had been in the translation business for 3 years or less and had never attended an ITI Conference before. We decided on four bursaries of £100 each, as that would be a significant help.

Other criteria

We asked applicants to write a little bit about why they should get a bursary. This proved very useful, as applications came in thick and fast and it was difficult to differentiate purely on a first come, first served basis. We also stipulated that applicants book the actual conference (1 or 2 days), not solely the masterclasses.

Applicants

We had eight applicants for the four bursaries. A couple were easily discounted as they didn’t meet all the criteria, but we had to look carefully at what the others had written to decide. We set the deadline before the ITI’s deadline for staged payments, in case applicants wanted to make use of that facility. Successful applicants were notified quickly and they all then booked promptly.

Outcome

The bursary competition seemed to raise the profile of the Conference among YTI members in general, and a quick look at the delegates list shows that 34 YTI members have booked for some or all of the event. Though not a stipulation, we hope our bursary recipients will write entries for the YTI blog after attending.

Lessons

If we do this again, we will tighten up the criteria to make it easier to allocate the bursaries. It seemed a very worthwhile exercise and we hope it has enabled newcomers to attend who might not otherwise have been able to.