There has been a great deal of criticism of APC and the Long Range Planning Committeee's recent meeting, held at Villa Marlena on this past Feb. 18th. 2010. The main complaints center around the perceived misconception "it was an APC meeting".
There is no such thing as "an APC meeting", for most times, the general trend of any meeting is basically determined by the attendance. The meeting had been called for all concerned to express their views in an open and free athmosphere, where everybody's opinions were to be respected. Yet, the first person to walk off the meeting did so because of allegedly "racist" comments by another person, who to my recollection, expressed no such views and indeed, had the right to express her own views, even if disliked by others. Branding the meeting as "an APC meeting" is therefore a fallacy, serves no useful purpose and is basically counter-productive to the desired understanding among Costambar's multi-national residents. Chastazing folks for expressing a view we do not personally espouse, is not conducive to free expression either.
It is true that not enough "official translators" were on hand, yet, an Italian-speaking lady volunteered to do so and beckoned everybody that needed such translation to get near her and only one gentleman did. Another simply chose to walk off, even though such service was offered to all. A second man walked off because there was no German translator on site and I guess that was true, for even though I do speak some German myself, I am no longer fluent enough to be a translator, after 30 years of not using that language on a regular basis.
APC and myself, are very cognizant of the fact translators will obviously be needed for future meetings, in view of Costambar's ever increasing multi-national demographics.
No one is perfect and APC falls into that group too. That a problem along those lines exists is amply recognized now and step are being taken to remediate the flaw. Simply throwing one's arms up in the air and announcing there is no hope for Costambar and APC because of the failure of one meeting, is hardly sensible or productive.
It seems therefore, that allowing APC to take corrective actions to the translation problem, letting others express their opinions (even though it may conflict with our own) and generally keep an open mind as to the ample possibilities available for mutual understanding as to how we can improve this community of ours, are in effect, the best course of action at these functions.
In order to solve the translation problem, I have put together a list of potential translators into Spanish, Italian, French and German, which might be called to help at future meetings. Yes, your name may well be on that list, you may be called upon to serve in that capacity and thus help APC meet this community's needs.
I thank you in advance for your help.
Raf
Vocal, Communications.