Wolfestone Translation Blog

In yet another chapter of their success story, leading Swansea entrepreneurs Anna Bastek and Roy Allkin of Wolfestone Translation have been chosen to take part in the LEAD Wales project. This is an event limited to 25 of the most successful owner-managers of small or medium sized businesses, initially in the Swansea area, but eventually to cover all of Wales. It has received recognition and £8m of funding from the Welsh Assembly Government and the European Social Fund. The co-founders of Wolfestone were chosen as a result of the great potential of Wolfestone Translation and for creating employment in Wales.

It is hoped that the scheme, which is being run through Swansea University School of Business and Economics, will help some 700 businesses over the next 7 years, with the first cohort completing the scheme within 10 months. It is intended that the scheme, which provides each participant with £10,000 worth of training, will enable these businesses to “increase profitability, enable diversification and encourage business growth.” Pilot schemes trialled in the North West led to increased turnover, employment, productivity and profits.

The scheme itself involves two days study per month, which started in February with an overnight weekend experiential team-building event. Mr Allkin said about the first session “The weekend was about ice breaking and leadership training and I think the event was a great success. It really brought to light the diversity of businesses in Swansea and the real entrepreneurial talent that exists here”. Following on from this each participant is supported by the expertise of academics, mentors, coaching professionals and, of course, each other. LEAD Wales is unique in that it is a programme which attempts to meet the needs of growing companies as opposed to traditional business management courses which are aimed at start-ups or public sector managers seeking to enhance their career prospects.

When asked how she felt about the honour of being chosen for such an elite scheme, Miss Bastek said ”I was delighted to be approached by LEAD Wales. It will be very beneficial to team up with so many successful businesses and share experiences and ideas. I’m sure it will also create new business opportunities. I also believe that encouraging collaboration between higher education and the private sector will help to drive forward the Welsh economy.”

In the age where English comes to dominate the planet, the fate of smaller languages spoken by lesser numbers is often forgotten.  At exactly the same time as we debate the pros and cons of English taking over the world, other languages which have been spoken for tens of thousands of years are rapidly dying.  One such example occurred last week, when Boa Sr, the last remaining speaker of the Bo language, died.

With her death, a language amongst the very very oldest spoken by mankind – some 65,000 years old – passed into history.  An expert on the languages of the area said that her loss was tragic as it robbed us of the chance of discovering how languages evolve.  Indeed, there are only a few dozen Great Andamanese tribespeople left.  When they leave us, another 10 languages will be consigned to history.

At a human level, there is the fact that for the last 30 years of her life, there was no-one left with whom she could converse in her mother tongue.  She adapted by speaking Hindi and a colloquial mixture of other Great Andamanese, but not everyone can master another language.  Even those who can will never quite be at their ease using a second language.

That said, not every minority language is doomed to die out altogether.  If the decline can be checked in time, a minority language can be preserved, and, given time, brought back to the rudest of health.  One such example is the Welsh language.  At one point, it was considered simply a matter of time before Welsh would die out.  However, certain steps were undertaken – the key one being its reintroduction as a language used in schools – and it is now estimated that one in four Welshmen can speak the language to conversational level.

Indeed, many of these pupils achieve near-native fluency in the tongue despite having monoglot English parents and family.  Quite frequently they become indistinguishable from those whose mother tongue is Welsh.  This is proof that no language need ever die out if the will to preserve it is there.  It is simply a matter of having this desire to save a living language.

Do you want to know more about languages? Or do you need a translation in an unusal language? Contact Wolfestone Translation.

Pioneering local company Wolfestone Translation has just added to its array of trophies with the Swansea Marriott Evening Post Business Award for September.  Company Directors Roy Allkin and Anna Bastek followed this success up by addressing the prestigious ATC conference in London the following day.

Wolfestone was recognised for comprehensively bucking the recessionary trend and expanding whilst other companies are haemorrhaging employees.  Senior management attribute this to actually increasing the marketing and advertising budget when other companies are taking scythes to theirs.  As a result, turnover has doubled within a year, it is expected to double again in the coming year, and the company will soon be moving to substantially larger headquarters.  Further expansion is also in the offing, with an office in Houston about to be opened.

The celebrations were to be topped off with a champagne reception and a meal cruising along the Thames on a riverboat.  Whilst this would indeed have been the pinnacle of the evening, this is not entirely what happened.  Having spent slightly too long celebrating their award in the Swansea Marriott, they left for London a little too late.  The situation was still salvageable, however, up to the point when a taxi driver took them to the wrong pier.  They arrived at their pier in perfect time to see their boat casually heading off in the direction of London Bridge – a real case of missing the boat just after sailing off with the award.

That, however, was not the main purpose of the London visit.  This was to make a key note presentation to the ATC.  There they talked about their growth and the efficacy or otherwise of certain marketing strategies.  The basic premise of the address is that it is impossible to overestimate the power of an effective public relations strategy.  Wolfestone itself has demonstrated this.  As a result of a small piece in the Evening Post about a new local translation firm, another local company contacted them with a view to translating some documents for a client.  The client won the tender, which was worth several million pounds, and Wolfestone received orders for many thousands of pounds of translation.  The other focal point of the presentation was the importance of using publicity to improve the credibility of the company.  This is intertwined with having a well-planned PR strategy.  The presentation was very well received and informative to all who were listening.

Yet again, Wolfestone has proved that a well-defined business strategy will always reap its rewards.  2009’s New Business of the Year for the South West Wales area continues to grow both inside and far outside this geographical area and may very well soon be scooping the awards Stateside.

For more information visit our website www.wolfestone.co.uk!

When it comes to thriving in some of the toughest economic conditions seen in recent times, one Swansea business is certainly talking the right language. While many companies slashed marketing and advertising budgets as the recession hit home, Wolfestone Translation did the opposite.

The Walter Road-based business is now reaping the rewards.
In the past year, it has seen its turnover doubled and hopes to at least double it again by the same time next year. As a result it has announced massive expansion plans which will see its HQ move next door to a new four-storey £250,000 premises.

Wolfestone is setting up offices in the USA and other locations as part of global expansion plans creating as many as 28 new jobs — around ten to 15 of which will be in Swansea.

Polish-born Anna Bastek set up the company with Welsh business partner Roy Allkin in 2006. They currently employ 15 people in Swansea and two at an office in Germany.

Ten of the world’s most popular languages are catered for at the firm’s Uplands base with the company also having a database of an additional 5,000 translators they can draw on if need be. Mr Allkin, from Ammanford, explained: “Each translator is a specialist in certain fields such as the medical or legal fields. This is important. For example, we need to make sure that the clauses in a legal document translation are exactly correct as to how they are written otherwise they might not be legally binding once translated.”

Wolfestone has also invested £25,000 into new software to aid global expansion, matched by Assembly funding.

For Mr Allkin the economic downturn could not have come at a better time. “Most people’s first reaction to a recession is to cut the purse strings. Sales and marketing are usually the first things to be cut back. It’s crazy. How are you going to generate the income to get yourselves out of the mess if you do that? We invested a lot of our money in getting our name out there. So as many of our competitors were reducing the size of their adverts in trade publications, we were increasing it. Because companies were shopping around to get a better deal they noticed us and started coming to us as a result.”

Situating the businesses HQ in Wales’ second city instead of London has also paid dividends. “Being based in Swansea as opposed to London is an advantage,” said Mr Allkin. “We have lower overheads compared to the majority of translation businesses, which are based in London. Everything is done by electronic means and we’re able to keep our costs a lot lower. We set our stall out in the beginning to offer as high a quality service as others, if not better, at a good rate.”

Mr Allkin said: “For me, the majority of translation companies are set up and run by translators, whereas neither me or Anna are translators. Combining our skills and looking at it from a business viewpoint rather than a translation viewpoint gives us a slightly different approach than most. From the beginning we were thinking big. It’s moved a lot faster than we could have imagined.”

For more information visit our website www.wolfestone.co.uk!

Wolfestone is currently looking for student Interns who wish to gain experience in the Translation and/or Marketing industry. We will consider students with all language pairs but would prefer those who can translate French, Spanish, Italian and German in particular. These are the languages we can guarantee the most translation work for.

As we are a small company we can offer students experience in all aspects of the business not only translation but also in marketing, research, project management and also interpreting and transcription occasionally. Wolfestone is a young and dynamic company who can offer an intern a great experience both socially and professionally.

If you are interested in applying for an internship please visit our website.

We crossed the finish line yesterday at 5pm.  Masssive BBQ and beach party last night.  We didnt win any of the awards but had a fantastic time.  Fly back today lots of photos to add later.  Excellent Run would definitely do it again.

Arrived in Salamanca last night, had a look round the town and had a few drinks with some of the other teams.  In Portugal now.  We are in convoy with a few teams today as some of them are having engine trouble….

Got into San Sebastian yesterday afternoon and got pulled by the police. They had already seen the A-team car and wanted to take photos. They said we are crazy! Met up with a few teams at the camp site last night and had drinks at the site bar. Didn’t see the town as it was raining. We are in convoy with a team on route to Salamanca. Should be there in 5 hours so back on track.

Fan belt snapped yesterday 50km out of la Rochelle, we spent the night in Lucon The local peugoet dealer got the parts and fixed the car first thing this morning we head straight for san Sebastian now having missed last night’s festivities. We should only be a few hours behind the other teams and will be able to set off with them tomorrow all going to plan.

Wolfestone Translation is sponsoring a team to complete The Sucata Run which is the European charity banger rally tour from France to Portugal and is taking place on August Bank Holiday weekend.
The Sucata Rally consists of teams of up to 4 people driving in an old car worth no more than £250 for 5 days. The tour starts in Normandy’s capital, Rouen and proceeds 2000km through Bordeaux and Spain and ends at Europe’s most westerly point in Portugal. Wolfestone is sponsoring Ghostbusters – a 4 man team from Swansea comprising of Phil Burchell the team captain and co-drivers John Burchell, Steve Gray and Richard Ward from Swansea. We will be following their progress through My Space and SMS daily.
This year there are 66 teams taking part and 100% of the money teams raise goes directly to charity. Benefiting from the tour is a charity called Gemini, a UK charity that encourages children and young people around the world to talk to each other about issues that are important to them. This is to help break down cultural, religious and social barriers. The aim of the programme is to discourage the use of violence against other religions, cultures or states. The Sucata Run also has green credentials as they will be off-setting all the carbon created by the run using carbon off setting companies.
Anna Bastek, Director of Wolfestone Translation said: “We are always happy to support good causes and the Sucata Run is a great and exciting event. I’m sure next year Wolfestone Translation will enter the run ourselves as it is a great team building event and a great opportunity to help people in need.”
At the end of the race the participants have the option to scrap their car in an environmentally friendly way or if they have grown attached to it over the course of the 5 days they can take it back home with them. Wolfestone Translation is all for crossing barriers and boundaries (even in an old banger!) and we wish the Ghostbusters team the best of luck.

For more information visit our website www.wolfestone.co.uk!