New subject: WPMed Foundation: Wrapping up 2018 and Heading toward 2019!

7 Jan 2019

Dear WikiProject Medicine enthusiasts & friends,

It's been a while since we last updated the list about what we've been
up to this
year (sorry about that -- it's on our list of improvements for next year).

As we are wrapping up 2018, we thought you might appreciate an update with
some highlights, so below is a report on:
* *Summary of 2018*
* *Renewing membership for 2019* - for all members, *by Jan 31, 2019*!
* *Upcoming board election -* during February & March 2019!
** Getting involved!*

Yes, it's a bit long, but worth the read, and we do hope that it will
inspire more of you to get more involved in the coming year.

Wishing you and your families a happy, fruitful and joyous 2019!

Yours,

Shani Evenstein Sigalov
Chairperson, WikiProject Medicine Foundation.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*==What did we achieve in 2018?==*
2018 has been extremely busy -
* We continued to *collaborate with like-minded organizations*, like
Cochrane, Translators Without Boarders, The World Health Organization
(WHO), The International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) and Osmosis, to name
a few.
* We have continued our *collaborations with Universities *around the
world, where Medical students wrote medical-related articles as part of
their academic curriculum.
* Around *60 new members,* who share our passion to make high-quality
medical information available to the world, joined us.
* We *participated in conferences* and *published academic peer-reviewed
articles in *respected journals.
* We have further *developed our Offline Medical Wikipedia App*.
* *Internet-in-a-box became smaller and smarter! * We've continued to spread
the word about it and send it to various places around the world.
* We've been working on *an annual plan for 2019* for the first time. It
will soon be released and you'll be invited to help us make it a reality.
* And -- *we've applied to become a Thematic Organization
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Project_Med/Application>* (instead of
a user group).

To read more about each of these, *please check out our 2018 report draft
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMMED/Reports/2018> *and *add your
activities to it by Jan 15th*. We know we didn't cover everything that's
happened this year, so please help us complete the report.

*==Membership Renewal==*
Till now, membership was not limited by time, i.e. members who applied were
not given information about how long their membership is for. As our
organization grows and evolves, we need to be able to track our members
more closely. To that end, the board has decided to slightly edit the
membership requirement, and include that *membership will be for a maximum
of 2 years*, after which members will be asked to renew their membership.
Consequently, we will be starting to track our members this way as of Jan
2019, and membership in this round will last till December 2020, after
which we will ask members to renew their membership.
So -- *whether you are currently a member or not, please fill out our
updated membership form
<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfP1MvuBmtCkqT7i5qYyIm0jspEL2wE440hWSD9tWLmMTFNKA/viewform>,
to ensure your membership till the end of 2020. *

*Please note -- We ask that you fill out the form by Jan 31st, as we are
close to elections and only members can nominate themselves and vote!*

*==Board elections == *
Our previous elections were in *Jan 2017 for a 2 years term*, where a board
of 12 people was nominated and elected. Due to the international nature of
our group, that board have had various difficulties operating and at the
end of 2017 it was decided to down-sizing the number of board members from
12 to 7. In addition, on Jan 2018, 3 new board members joined us, replacing
departing board members. Thus, as of Jan 2018, the board composition has
been:

   1. *Chair and Membership Admin*: Shani Evenstein (elected on Jan 2017)
   2. *Secretary*: Doug Taylor, M.A. (Cantab)  (elected on Jan 2017)
   3. Daniel Mietchen, Ph.D.  (elected on Jan 2017)
   4. Carl Fredrik Sjöland  (elected on Jan 2017)
   5. Jennifer Dawson, Ph.D. (from Jan 2018)
   6. Sam Zidovetski (from Jan 2018)
   7. Indira  Gowda (from Jan 2018)

These ended up being positive changes for the board and 2018 has been a
much better year in terms of board stability - we have been working more
closely, meeting almost monthly throughout the year. On October 2018 Indira
notified us that she cannot continue her role as board member, so we are
currently 6 members. We have not added a new board member as we knew
elections are close by.

One decision we made regarding the coming elections is that we'd like to
keep the number of board members as 7, but *for a period of 3 years*,
rather than 2. We also decided to *split the elections, to ensure some
continuity in the board*. Building on the fact that we've had 4 board
members voted for 2 years from Jan 2017 and 2 board members joining us in
Jan 2018, we've decided to split the elections as follows: *5 board member
seats (4 from Jan 2017 + Indira's seat) will become available in the coming
elections, for a period of 3 years.* As Jennifer and Sam joined a year
later, they will continue as board members till the end of 2019 and *their
seats will be up for re-election at the end of 2019 for a period of 3
years.  *

*Below is the timeline for the new board elections:  *
*Phase 1: 5 board members, till March 2022. *
* By Jan 2019 - Membership renewal
* Feb 3 - March 2 2019 - Nominations
* March 11 - March 24 2019 - Voting for 5 seats on the board
* March 26 - *Announcement of the 5 new board members. *
*Phase 2: 2 board members, till December 2022. *
* November 1 - November 30 2019 - Nominations
* December 1 - December 15 2019 - Voting
* End of December 2019 - *Announcement of the 2 new board members. *

*Please note *-- only WPMedF members can nominate themselves for the board
and only WPMedF members can vote during the election, so please be
sure to *renew
your membership*!
More details about the nominations will be sent out at the beginning of
Feb.

*==Get involved!==*
Finally, we have be working on a yearly plan for 2019, but can already say
that one of our goals for this coming year is to involve more people from
our community, i.e. members of the user group who are not members of the
board, in our activities. In other words -- *you don't need to be on the
board to be involved*, and we need help from as many people as possible!

We are looking for people who are either interested in getting involved
with specific tasks, or have specific skills the board recognized as ones
that could be helpful to the advancement of the organization in the coming
year.

*Please contact me if you'd like to get involved with - *
* Running medical-related educational collaborations
* Running medical-related edit-a-thons
* Facilitating collaborations with a like-minded organization
* Presenting in relevant conferences
* Selling Internet-in-a-Box locally
* Helping map Wikidata items with Mix'n'match

*Please also contact me if you have one or more of these skills - *
* Programming, writing Wiki Tools, Wiki bots or generating statistics of
specific pages across different languages.
* Fundraising experience
* Accounting experience (and in the US)

*That's it for this time. Happy 2019, everyone!*

Cheers,
Shani.

-----------------------------------------------
*Shani Evenstein Sigalov*
EdTech Innovation Strategist, NY/American Medical Program, Sackler School
of Medicine, Tel Aviv University.
PhD Candidate, School of Education, Tel Aviv University.
Lecturer, Tel Aviv University.
Chairperson, WikiProject Medicine Foundation
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Project_Med>.
Chairperson, Wikipedia & Education User Group
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_%26_Education_User_Group>.
Chairperson, The Hebrew Literature Digitization Society
<http://www.israelgives.org/amuta/580428621>.
Chief Editor, Project Ben-Yehuda <http://bybe.benyehuda.org>.
*+972-525640648*