Minutes of the Annual Meeting of the Slavic Languages Division of the American Translators Association

September 27, 2025, 1:00 PM EDT

Held online via Zoom

Steven McGrath, Administrator; Natalia Postrigan, Assistant Administrator

 Note: Text in red designates formal actions and decisions made by the group democratically.

SLD Annual Meeting Convened on September 27, 2025, 1 PM EDT

The Zoom meeting was opened at 12:30 PM Eastern. The Slavic Languages Division Annual Meeting was called to order by Steven McGrath shortly after 1 PM Eastern Daylight Time. Tom Fennell volunteered to be the Secretary of the Meeting.

SLD Annual Meeting 2024 Minutes

Having been duly circulated to the membership, the 2024 minutes were approved unanimously.

SLD Election Results

It was noted that over the summer, Steven McGrath was re-elected as Administrator and that Natalia Postrigan was re-elected Assistant Administrator, both by affirmation in the absence of other candidates. It was noted that both Steven and Natalia are term-limited in their current roles.

Reports and Decisions arising out of them

SLD Blog

Eugenia Tietz-Sokolskaya reported that the division’s website and blog now have full functionality after previous technical issues. She highlighted the restoration of the subscription function as an important step toward increasing member engagement with the Blog and encouraged all SLD members to subscribe to the blog as our main means of sharing information in the division.

Eugenia also requested volunteers to help coordinate conference session reviews for the blog, in particular, about the sessions of our distinguished speaker.

A motion arose out of the discussion of the report:

Decision to consider renaming the Blog

A motion was made to consider a new name over the next year. The motion was duly seconded, and after discussion, it carried unanimously. Suggestions were made to consider names such as Slavfile, Slavfile Online, or Proceedings of the Slavic Divisions, and a call was made for the members to supply further ideas. Paul Gallagher commented that increasing the participation and visitor traffic on the blog was of importance. Steven suggested that the leadership council gets involved in the discussion of the name.

SLD Webinars

Eugenia reported on the successful ATA certification exam preparation webinar, which had 22 participants. She stated that the webinar materials were available. A suggestion was made to explore the possibility of offering the webinar as a division member benefit, free to the SLD members. A suggestion was made to explore alternative formats, such as a workshop, and to try Canva to record presentations. Steven suggested surveying the members to find whether they prefer a webinar or workshop. David Stephenson suggested talking with the Spanish division about their experience conducting webinars and workshops as a division benefit.

Social Media

SLOVO – the SLD Podcast

The recent podcast episodes were reviewed, and it was noted that the current podcast administrator, Halla Goins, is stepping down.

LinkedIn, Facebook, X

Steven gave a brief report on SLD social media on behalf of the volunteer administrators. Facebook administrator Anna Livermore is stepping down. Steven mentioned that ATA had released a new guide for social media administrators that would be useful to potential volunteers, including on platforms where the SLD currently has no presence.

A motion arose out of the discussion of social media, and the attendees approved, without objections, to establish a social media committee, with Tom Fennell appointed as chair. The committee will manage the division’s social media efforts including the podcast, LinkedIn, and possibly other media. Tom indicated he would try to recruit fellow committee members.

SLD Banquet at Boston-2025

At the time of the annual meeting, the dinner registration was at 14-15 people, well below the target of 30-35 needed for the restaurant buyout. Natalia explained that the restaurant had a fixed price for groups of 30+ people, which included drinks and wine, and could not be prorated based on the actual attendance. The group discussed options including keeping the current reservation, negotiating with the restaurant about separate tables for smaller groups, or switching to a pay-as-you-go system similar to the one in 2021. Tom suggested continuing to work with the restaurant while preparing for a potential late registration surge, and Natalia confirmed that the restaurant would most likely agree to changing the arrangements.

Sourcing Candidates for the Division Leadership Positions

Steven stated that the new ATA handbook changed the process for nominating division officers. There will be no more nominating committees. Active SLD members interested in leadership positions may be self-nominated or nominated by any other member.

2026 San Francisco Conference

The group discussed potential topics and speakers for the future conference. One idea was a presentation on AI resources for Slavic languages, and it was suggested that Dmitry Beschetny might be able to help with this. Another topic suggested was alternative/supplementary career opportunities for translators and interpreters. Tom said he would consider doing a presentation on switching from translating to interpreting. Yet another potential topic for the 2026 conference was interpreting in Slavic languages. Eugenia noted that our division presentations tend to be heavy on literary topics and there is an interest in topics related to interpreting. Natalia Petrova suggesting a panel on the preparation for the Russian court interpreting exam. Tom Fennell shared his experience using AI to prepare for the Nebraska court interpreter exam.

Shelley Fairweather-Vega added in the chat that Nina Bogdan had moved away from translation, but that she had a book out about the Russian community in San Francisco, where the conference will be (Before We Disappear into Oblivion: San Francisco’s Russian Diaspora from Revolution to Cold War). She might want to do a presentation.

The participants also noted that the Slavic Languages Division will not have a distinguished speaker at the next conference in 2026, and that plans for future conferences remain uncertain.

Open Floor Questions and Feedback

A suggestion was made, and the attendees agreed to continue with the quarterly Zoom networking meetings.

Introduction of New Attendees

Yngve Roennike, a seasoned translator based in Washington, DC, shared his background in a broad number of European languages, especially Scandinavian ones, but also including Russian, and his interest in translation.

Adjournment

The meeting ended with a motion to adjourn, which was duly seconded, and was passed unanimously.

---

Please note that the original version of the minutes was reviewed and approved by:

Steve Mcgrath

Nora Seligman Favorov

Liv Bliss

Shelley Fairweather-Vega

Aleksandr Lukoff

Paul Gallagher

Yngve Roennike

 

Substantial additions and improvements were made by Eugenia Tietz-Sokolskaya, Dmitry Beschetny and Natalia Postrigan, many thanks for that!  It just goes to show that “too many cooks do not always spoil the broth,” and that oftentimes instead “many hands make light work.”

Faithfully submitted,

Tom Fennell

SLD 2025 Annual Meeting Secretary

November 25, 2025

Minutes of the Annual Meeting of the Slavic Languages Division

of the American Translators Association

September 29, 2024, 2:00 EDT

Held online via Zoom

Steven McGrath, Administrator; Natalia Postrigan, Assistant Administrator

1. Short introductions were exchanged (attendees’ locations and specializations) before the meeting was called to order.
2. The meeting was called to order at 2:03 PM EDT.
3. The minutes from the annual meeting of 2023 were shared in the chat for the attendees to review, and it was mentioned that the minutes were also previously published in the Slav File.
4. The agenda for the current meeting was also shared in the chat. Eugenia Tietz-Sokolskaya seconded to approve. The 2024 agenda was accepted with no changes.
5. Division members presented an overview of Division events in the past year:
6. Blog update: Eugenia shared an update on the SLD Blog. There have been challenges this year related to the changes in the content regulations for ATA division blogs. Also, currently there is no way to subscribe to the blog, leaving no way to let members know about new posts: the only way at present is to request a broadcast to all through ATA communications. Steven said that he would bring up this issue in the quarterly report to the ATA board.
   • Eugenia will be at the conference in Portland inviting people to submit reviews of the conference sessions for publication in the blog.
   • Aleksandr Lukoff asked what input would be wanted from the conference. Eugenia explained that members would be invited to share reviews of the conference sessions.
   • Steven expressed appreciation for Eugenia’s work, and for Viktoryia Baum for contributing an article to the blog.
   • Viktoryia commented about her willingness to share reviews on the sessions, if possible.
   • Steven added that in addition to Slavic track sessions, because in the blog format we don’t have a page limit anymore, anyone is welcome to submit reviews of sessions in other tracks, as well as other content.
7. Website update: Eugenia shared an update about the website. Eugenia would like to build the resource page on the website, and she invited everyone to supply links and resources.
8. SLD podcast: Halla Goins was not present to report progress. Steven reported that the podcast is going well. Steven mentioned that there had been two episodes this year and that a new episode is coming soon. Steven expressed appreciation for Viktoryia for participating in the podcast.
9. Facebook, LinkedIn, and the online forum: The volunteers in this area were not present to report. Steven expressed appreciation for the volunteer effort to grow our social media: Anna Livermore for Facebook, Julia Thornton for the Google forum, and Mikhail Yashchuk for LinkedIn.
10. Steven asked if anyone would be interested in managing the division’s X (formerly Twitter) account. There was no interest expressed.
11. New business for 2024:
    • Next year, an election is coming up for the administrator and assistant administrator. Steven called for volunteers for the nominating committee (at least two members). Eugenia and Shelley Fairweather-Vega volunteered.
    • ATA’s 66th Annual Conference will be held in Boston, MA, October 22-25, 2025.
    • Steven invited suggestions for speakers, in particular, for a Distinguished Speaker. Eugenia encouraged members to send proposals to present on their specialization, because the Slavic track usually is slow to fill up. Language-specific sessions are of particular interest. Eugenia said that we are all experts in something and great in what we do, and it would be interesting for all to hear these presentations. Steve joined this call for proposals, sharing that presenting is a good experience and helps you think about your specialization in a new way. Aleksandr commented that interpreting for worker compensation cases appears to be an area of high demand at the moment.
    • Eugenia reminded attendees that Nora Favorov had suggested literary translator Robert Chandler on several occasions, and Boston would be a logistically easier destination for him traveling from England. Shelley commented that if someone like Robert Chandler is recruited, the Literary Division might join SLD to have a joint Distinguished Speaker. The Literary Division also needs to find a distinguished speaker for the next year.
    • Eugenia mentioned immigration lawyer Jan Albrecht as another potential distinguished speaker. Aleksandr mentioned that a colleague of late Ukrainian émigré linguist Sviatoslav Karavanskyi could be a good speaker, but he would need to research a suitable candidate.
    • Steven mentioned that distinguished speaker suggestions would be reviewed by Paul Gallagher.
12. Call for feedback and suggestions from the members
    • Eugenia spoke about the survey for her and John Riedl’s upcoming presentation at the conference. The survey was sent by the ATA in the past month. The subject was “SLD survey request,” and the email went out on September 25th. The survey is primarily on the topic of Russian>English translation.
    • Viktoryia expressed appreciation for the work of SLD administrator and assistant administrator and mentioned being nominated for ATA president-elect.
13. Call for newcomers to introduce themselves
    • Anna Kostorna made her introduction. She is looking to expand her business in translation and interpreting work in Ukrainian and Russian.
    • Steven encouraged attendees to share their contact information in the chat.
14. Annual dinner: Natalia reported on signups for the annual dinner in Portland and encouraged people to sign up soon, as we are getting close to capacity. Viktoryia suggested that next year SLD and LTD consider a joint dinner.
15. ATA election: Steven mentioned that the ballots for the ATA election should be going out tomorrow.
16. The meeting was adjourned at 2:46 PM EDT.