By Irene Stoel, DLD Administrator
October 15, 2021
In February of this year the Dutch Language Division sent out a survey to its membership to get a better idea of who the members are and how to tailor activities to their needs.
30 members responded to the survey, which came out to about 24% of the individual members. Results were shared with the membership during the Virtual Get-Together in May. In order to reach more members, we are now also sharing some of the key results in this article, as well as some conclusions that were drawn.
20% of our respondents were in the 30-49 age group, 50% in the ages between 50-64, and 30% were 65+. With 80% over 50 years old, the obvious conclusion would be that we are missing “young blood”.
It is clear that our members work in very diverse fields. Multiple answers to the question about specializations received around the same number of votes. “Legal” was the answer indicated most often, with “medical” in second place. This means that there really is enough diversity in the work being offered, so that everyone can find their niche.
It is concerning that only 50% of the respondents are on the DLD’s Google Group Forum.
We would really like to increase this number since it is the main means of communication for our members. That is the place where we share information about ATA and DLD activities, and it is a way for DLD members to ask each other questions about terminology, agencies, etc.
Most of the respondents (73%) do not look at the DLD website unless they receive a notification about something new being posted. 20% are not interested at all.
Most respondents are looking to the DLD for networking, a total of 62%. However, the number of people who are interested in regular virtual meetings was lower, at 50%. Among those who were interested, there was a divide regarding the preferred frequency. Unfortunately, with a declining number of members attending the yearly conference (even before the pandemic), and not having any clusters of members living close to each other, we do not have many networking options, besides social media and virtual meetings.
Finally, regarding sessions at the ATA’s annual conference, there was a resounding “No” from 50% of the respondents about wanting to be a speaker. But, on the bright side, that also means that 50% said “Yes”, “Only together with others” or “Maybe”. Hopefully, that means that through networking among DLD members, we can have more Dutch sessions at future conferences. Interestingly enough, after sending out the membership survey, the number of individual members decreased from 153 in January to 127 in April.
