The following is a blog post written by Steven Krauwer, FEL Treasurer
A look at the profiles of my colleagues on the FEL Executive Committee will reveal that language endangerment has many different dimensions, and that the people on the Committee have a variety of different interests and priorities. The same applies to our members. Recently, I collated the special interests of past and present members, as indicated on their membership forms, and I was impressed by the variety of themes, languages, and combinations thereof. The list of interests is anonymous and organised as an alphabetic and unstructured sequence of entries that appear on the forms, with many repetitions and overlaps in topics, however it gives a good idea of what our members are concerned about. Looking at the list, I feel that it would be valuable for us to think of better ways for FEL to capitalise on what members tell us about their interests, and what they could contribute to FEL, other than what they pay for their membership. If you are already a member do get in touch and give us your feedback.
My hope for the coming years is that we manage to attract and sustain more members and donors, so that we can expand our grants programme and especially do more revitalization work. Just to give you an idea of what we need: for every 25 people who join FEL as a paying member we can give out one extra grant in the next round, so please join us if you are not already a member and encourage your friends, colleagues, and students to do so.