Dear Critical Link Member, 

It has been some time since Critical Link International has reached out to its members and we apologize for our silence. But silence does not mean inactivity and we have been busy working internally, on organizational improvements and externally with our partners to shape and move forward the professional domain of community interpreting. 

CLI has always been the global organization for community interpreting, but things have changed since its inception in 1992. At that time, founder Brian Harris (who I had the joy of meeting up with in Valencia, Spain this past spring) along with a group of colleagues, established Critical Link as an opportunity to explore a new and emerging sector within language studies – community interpreting. But CLI is not the only player any longer. We now have a variety of regional and global organizations whose missions and mandate might overlap with CLI, and we work in partnership with many of them. So, the CLI Board of Directors found itself asking “is CLI still relevant?” We wanted to know if CLI still offers a value to the language services community and to individual practitioners. That question instigated a lively dialogue that underscored how much CLI is not only relevant, but necessary. The inquiry process led to our new Strategic Plan, adopted by the organization on August 2017. The Strategic Plan 2016 – 2019, will guide CLI activities until we all meet again in Tokyo, Japan for CLI9 in 2019. 

We began by refining our mission statement, which now reads, Linking the World for the Advancement of Community Interpreting. Four strategic priorities detailing 17 strategic objectives were developed and adopted. While that may sound like a lot of objectives, the intent is to leverage initiatives so that the results benefit many of the objectives. The four priority areas are:

• Financial
• Beneficiaries (our members)
• Internal Operations
• Learning & Innovation

We have already started on 3 key projects: Membership, Communications and a Policies and Procedures manual update. The CLI Strategic Map is available here.

We hope that you will continue supporting Critical Link. Keep reading below for more news and important updates. 

I am always available to speak to Critical Link members. You can email me at asasso@criticallink.org at any time. 

Deepest Regards, 

Angela Sasso
President
Critical Link International