TranslateAble Joins the Association of British Professional Conference Organisers
We're delighted to share that TranslateAble has become a member of the Association of British Professional Conference Organisers (ABPCO), the UK's leading professional body for event organisers working in the association and not-for-profit sector.
We've joined as an industry member, and we're looking forward to being part of a community that places quality, professionalism and ethical standards at the heart of how conferences are organised.
About ABPCO
ABPCO represents the people who organise conferences for associations, membership bodies, charities and not-for-profit organisations. It welcomes organisers at every stage of their career, together with the venues, suppliers and service providers who support them, as industry members and partners.
For organisers and suppliers alike, membership demonstrates a commitment to quality, professionalism and ethical standards, and it brings the sector together around a shared set of good practices.
Why we've become members
There are two reasons behind our decision to join.
The first is simply to spend more time with conference organisers. Association and not-for-profit conferences are among the most international events in the calendar, with delegates travelling from around the world, detailed and often technical programmes and a genuine responsibility to make the content value and accessible to every member who attends. These are the events our language professionals are best suited to, and we'd like to get to know the people who organise them.
The second is to align ourselves more closely with ABPCO's code of practice and standards. We're already members of the Association of Translation Companies and the Event Supplier and Services Association, and we recently became an MSDUK certified ethnic minority business. ABPCO's code gives us a further benchmark, one set by and for the conference sector itself, and we think it's right that we work to the same standards as the organisers we hope to support.
Our first ABPCO event
We didn't wait long to get involved. Last month we attended our first ABPCO online members' event, Organising association events outside the UK.
It felt like a fitting place to start. Taking a conference into a new country is something I spent a good deal of my 20 years in event operations doing, and it was interesting to hear how association organisers approach the same challenges, from venue contracts and local suppliers to the language and cultural details that are easy to overlook, and it confirmed that there's a great deal we can learn from one another.
We're looking forward to more ABPCO events over the coming year, so if you're a fellow member, do come and say hello.
How we support association conferences
Before founding TranslateAble I spent 20 years in international event operations, so I have a fair idea of what it takes to deliver a multilingual conference programme on an association budget. Where we can help includes:
Conference interpretation, in person or remote, using interpreters with experience in your subject matter
Sign language interpreting and live captioning, so that members can follow the whole programme rather than just the keynote
Translation and localisation of abstracts, delegate communications, websites and post-event surveys, in the terminology your members use
Transcription of sessions and AGMs for members who weren't able to attend
Local sourcing wherever your conference takes place. In 2025, all of our onsite work was delivered by local interpreters and technicians, which helps to keep both costs and carbon emissions down
And because we understand how conferences run, we'll always let you know if there's a more sensible way to spend the budget. On one occasion that meant recommending remote rather than in-person interpretation, which saved the client around £200,000 and suited their format better.
We understand association conferences carry a particular responsibility, because the delegates are members and the content is the reason they joined. Making that content accessible, in every sense of the word, is something we care about a great deal, and ABPCO feels like the right community to be doing that work alongside.
Get in touch
If you're an ABPCO member with a conference or event in the planning, we'd be very happy to hear more about your event and how TranslateAble could support. Drop us a line
