Dear Everyone.

Now that we are a couple of weeks into 2021, I thought it would be nice to sit down and reflect on the previous year.

This is not a year that will be forgotten in any of our lifetimes. We did (and continue to do) our best to navigate the storm with our team of 24 core staff, Jenny, Tanya, Mary, Verity, Kirsty and Wesley as extra crew and our 1015, very valued freelancers.

And although we have often felt at sea, there is much to be thankful for. We owe massive gratitude to our hidden heroes; our staff, freelancers and clients who ventured back into the office, hospital, courtroom, police station or classroom and even out into Tesco car parks in December. And of course, it is only thanks to the diligence, calm attitude and resilience of our talented team that we are here at all. Somehow, amongst all the openings and closings, we managed to start a contract at Doncaster Council on April 1st, hit 100% fulfilment for some of our key contracts, support 850+ students and win a place as specialists on the UK-wide police framework.

Though we had always believed face to face work to be our world, this year we launched our remote services and worked hard to make it something we can be proud of. We are also setting up “bite-sized” interpreter training with Byron Campbell, Darren Townsend-Handscomb and Lesley Weatherson in January 2021 with a full bursary scheme for freelancers.

And we had a stark reminder of what our only real value is; teamwork, teamwork and more teamwork. We cooked breakfast bacon rolls, drank gin together and had our first ever remote Xmas party to keep our spirits bouncy.

Most of all, we’re grateful that we’ve been able to provide complete continuity of service to our clients; although the service appeared seamless from the outside I know how hard we all worked behind the scenes, juggling dogs, new babies, elderly parents, sick and vulnerable family members as well as truculent and lively children.

I wanted to Thank you all. This year gave us lemons, and as a team, across the UK we made lemonade.

Here’s to 2021.

Best wishes

Sally