From the CEO's desk: Member Organizations information

Hello again from Bangkok – though at the time that this newsletter is sent out I shall be in Rio de Janeiro, along with Drs Bohumil Seifert and Dan Ostergaard, taking part in a Conference Planning Committee meeting for the Rio 2016 conference. More on that in next month’s newsletter.

It has been a fairly quiet month, but there are a few items that I’d like to report on.

Membership declaration

We have recently written to all Member Organizations (MO) asking for their annual declaration of membership numbers. Each MO pays a per capita levy to WONCA on each full member in its organization, and this is WONCA’s main income for the year ahead. The per capita levy has not risen since 2007 – remaining at $1.72 for all of that time. However at World Council in Prague last year we drew attention to the fact that a number of MOs had been under-reporting their numbers, mainly because of some confusion about the requirements.

Council voted to keep the per capita levy unchanged, but with the proviso that MOs gave a more accurate and up to date report on their numbers. I’m pleased to say that MOs responded very positively, and WONCA’s income from MOs rose by about 10% last year. Many MOs continue to grow, and so income will hopefully continue to rise year on year.  MO votes at the WONCA World council are proportional to the number of members declared, so it pays to make sure your MO numbers are accurate. Some MOs were surprised in Prague to find their votes are not as many as they expected - because their declared member numbers were out of date.

We ask that all MOs make sure that their 2015 declaration is completed and signed off by their CEO, President or Chair, and returned to the Secretariat by 28th November.

Member Organization survey

Back in 2009, WONCA commissioned a company, MCI, to carry out a survey of member organizations, to get MO feedback on WONCA as an organization and to help to prioritise activities. We thought that it was time to repeat this exercise, and so we will soon be sending out a further short survey to all MOs. We do ask organizations to complete this survey, which can be done on line, as the information it will provide to Executive is extremely important in helping us to listen to our members and to respond to their needs. If at all possible we ask that each MO’s WONCA Council representative complete the survey, as he or she is likely to have best knowledge of WONCA s an organisation.

Annual report

Finally for this month, we are just finishing WONCA’s first Annual Report, covering the period from July 2013 to June 2014, and hope to distribute it during November. The report has been produced to keep our Member Organizations, Organizations in Collaborative Relationship, Direct Members, and other interested organisations and individuals informed of the progress of WONCA between World Council meetings. The report will outline highlights in the work of your elected executive members, our CEO and secretariat staff, and our working parties, special interest groups and representatives, over the past year. It will also include our most recent annual financial statement and auditor’s report.

Inevitably this short report can only provide a snapshot of the huge amount of work that is carried out by WONCA and our members around the world, but more news and details can always be found via the WONCA website – www.globalfamilydoctor.com.

With best wishes until next month.

Dr Garth Manning
CEO