The Linguist

@Linguist_CIOL DECEMBER/JANUARY The Linguist 33 INSTITUTE MATTERS T he German Language Society (GLS) is the continuation of the German Society, founded in 1986. The team that successfully led the society for decades said farewell in September 2019. With the pandemic hitting soon after, the new team had to embrace new ways of continuing the society. In many ways, digital life worked in our favour due to our locations in London, Cambridge, Frankfurt and Wismar. We became the German Language Society in order to broaden our reach and make everybody feel welcome, with the aim of connecting all German- speaking countries and expanding our network. To enable every CIOL member to learn about German-speaking nations we decided to create one event a month, alternating in German and English. Addressing current concerns, our online series 'Migration hat viele Gesichter' ('Migration has Many Faces') also reflects a long history of migration in German-speaking countries. We started in July with the 1974 film Angst essen Seele auf ('Fear Eats the Soul'; pictured). It tells the story of a widow working as a cleaner and a younger mechanic from Morocco, who lives in a room with five other Arabs. We compared this to the situation in Germany today. It is so important to learn from our colleagues and for the next event Walter Chromik shared his experiences before the fall of the Berlin Wall. At our third event, the speaker was VVDÜ President Natascha Dalügge-Momme, who has gained an understanding of the need for migration and integration while interpreting the often terrifying stories of refugees in court. Our fourth event, 'Hope is Illegal', focused on the story of a Nigerian migrant in Austria. Moving to an online delivery was not without its challenges, and we are grateful to the Midlands Network team, who provided very useful information. The CIOL communications team also offered generous support in regard to social media and marketing campaigns. We will end the year with a festive event in December, where our guest will be the real German Santa Claus! After the problems of 2020, we will focus on the positives next year with our 'Sag es positiv! #21' series, covering education and professional life with speakers from cultural societies, embassies and more. My wish is to expand the society and make it accessible to all, regardless of how well they speak German. The idea is to promote our passion for languages. We believe that everybody has a fantastic story to share, and we encourage members to send us suggestions and become an active part of the society. For details email GLS@ciol.org.uk. Follow the society on Facebook CIOLgermanlanguagesociety and Twitter @CIOL_GLS. For CIOL networks visit ciol.org.uk/networks-events. Beyond Germany How the newly invigorated German Language Society brought its event online. By its Chair Romana Sustar COUNCIL NEWS Judith Gabler reports on the November meeting with new CEO John Worne Welcome to our new CEO, John Worne! We are delighted that after our rigorous recruitment process with many high calibre candidates, John's background and expertise were the perfect fit for CIOL. John's début at the November Council meeting gave an early promise of pace and vision. An important exercise is to recalibrate all our policies annually. Despite the restrictions and ongoing uncertainty of the pandemic, our staff team are to be credited with enormous resilience by going over and beyond to ensure that we are fully compliant with statutory legislation. Financial stability remains challenging, but not impossible, and this is our top priority. Since becoming Chair I have frequently accentuated that we need to be an agile, evolving and responsive organisation in order to meet challenges head-on and define our roadmap in line with our ambition. This work is underway. Council has endorsed the plan to weld stronger synergies between membership, training and qualifications in order to create a leaner and harmonised 'One CIOL'. We are investing in technology to transition our qualifications to online delivery; drive smarter services; and equip our members and the language profession with cutting-edge knowledge. We are averaging 250+ live attendees at our training webinars. At around 90% so far, our retention rate has already exceeded last year's position. Council received annual reports from our three divisions, which are all doing splendid work to enable us to stay relevant and in demand. We are determined that as the pre-eminent body for language practitioners we will put ourselves at the heart of the profession as convener and facilitator. Our online Resources & Public Policy page, as well as our Policy & Position Statements, are regularly updated to reflect this. These are just a few highlights from November. I hope wherever you are you are keeping well and staying safe.

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