An update from our 2025 General Assembly

At our 30th anniversary Congress in Vienna, we held our 2025 General Assembly. Thank you to those members who were able to attend. 

I started off by giving an update on our Congress. WMS 2025 was another record-breaking Congress in many ways. We welcomed 1,500 delegates from 80 countries to the Austria Center Vienna and presented more than 700 posters. 

We also built on feedback from previous Congresses to evolve some Congress sessions and develop new features. 

During my General Assembly introduction, I announced our new Executive Board. Following the recent election, we now have an Executive Board of 16 members, including our two Early to Mid-Career Board representatives. You can see who's on the new Board on the WMS website.

In one of my final acts as the outgoing WMS President, I also announced our new Executive Officers. The new President of the WMS is Laurent Servais, our new Secretary is Gina Ravenscroft, and our new Treasurer is Ichizo Nishino. I look forward to supporting their leadership as a member of the Executive Board.

Laurent gave an update in his position as WMS Secretary, highlighting the need to continue to support new and young members, particularly those from countries where myology is still an emerging science.

Gisèle Bonne gave her final update as the WMS Treasurer. Under her leadership, our Society has established substantial financial reserves and is in a strong financial position. Gisèle decided not to seek re-election to the Executive Board, and I thank her for her years of dedicated service to the World Muscle Society. 

Gina Ravenscroft described the work of the 2025 Programme Committee, thanking the team of abstract reviewers and highlighting the valuable role Congress feedback plays in developing future Congresses. WMS 2025 was Gina's final Congress as Programme Committee Chair. Werner Stenzel was elected to take over the role.

Our Pre-Congress Teaching Course Co-Chairs, Nicol Voermans and Jorge Bevilacqua, shared an update on the Course. They celebrated the broad range of attendees from many countries and many specialisms and praised the high level of interaction within the sessions. 

After these updates, we heard from some of our WMS Committee Chairs. 

Our new Early to Mid-Career Executive Board members, Giorgia Coratti and Tamara Dangouloff, introduced themselves and highlighted the common requests for mentorships from the Early to Mid-Career peer networking session held the previous day. They encouraged members to get in touch with suggestions for how the WMS can better support our early to mid-career members. 

Hernán Gonorazky introduced the Strengthening Education for Equity Development (SEED) programme, which will support the development of Myology across our WMS regions (see below). Riyad El Khoury appealed for case submissions on behalf of the Featured Cases Committee. Teresa Gerhalter described the work of the Environmental Sustainability Committee and encouraged participation in our survey (see below). And Rasha El Sherif talked about our Regional Networks and encouraged members to participate in those and our regular Myology Cafés.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all our members for their ongoing support throughout my presidency and wish our new President, Laurent Servais, every success in his new role.