Welcome to your June newsletter from the World Muscle Society

I hope that your Japanese learning is progressing fast as it is only three months until we meet in Hisoshima, Japan for WMS 2026 and it is already proving to be one of our most popular ever Congresses. We already have almost 1,200 registered delegates and are expecting to sell out well in advance of the Congress opening. If you're hoping to join us and haven't yet registered, I encourage you to go ahead and register as soon as you can.

Our Programme Committee met in Berlin last month and was very impressed with the standard of work submitted. To make space for all the excellent posters, we have decided to expand our ePoster category. We have invited ePoster presenters to present at dedicated, moderated ePoster sessions. In addition to 423 printed posters, we will be showcasing 349 ePosters. It will be a lot for our delegates to get through, but you can also access all the posters throughout the Congress app and digital platform throughout the Congress and for three months afterwards. 

In other Congress news, WMS members who applied for a travel fellowship should have received their outcome notification emails by now. Due to the overwhelming number of fellowship applications, the WMS leadership has had to consider how best to help as many people as possible meet the costs of attending the Congress in person. As a result, we have adjusted the maximum value of intercontinental fellowships from the previously advertised £3,000 to £2,000. This is in line with the fellowship amounts for WMS 2025. Following research into flight and accommodation prices, we anticipate this will still cover the majority of Congress travel and accommodation expenses. Delegates travelling from within Asia will still be eligible for up to £1,000.
 

Away from the Congress, in an earlier newsletter, I promised to bring you news of our WMS Committee restructure. At our Executive Board meeting in February, the whole Board discussed the current structure and how best to adapt it to the work the WMS is currently doing. The WMS will continue to operate through the following committees:

• Programme Committee
• Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Committee
• Environmental Sustainability Committee
• Communications Committee (including Website and Social Media activities)
• Education Committee (including Featured Cases, Guidelines, and Publication Highlights activities)
• Global Myology Outreach Committee (including regional networks and the SEED initiative)

Each committee will have a Chair and Co-chair and a representative from the Executive Board to ensure a close connection between each committee and the Board. I would like to thank all our new and existing Committee members for their excellent work driving forward the objectives of the Society. 

Our newly formed Communications Committee has already been busy holding meetings and recruiting new members. You can read more about them in the section below. 

Kindest regards,