On the 21st March we held our Annual All Members Meeting 2023 at 12pm ET.

If you were unable to make the meeting you can find the recording below:

https://youtu.be/I9LNZXc8JGk

Please reach out if you would like a copy of the slides!

The meeting concluded our 2023 steering committee elections. Our newly elected committee members, those remaining, and those passing the baton spoke.

It was an opportunity to learn about SWMS activities over the 2022 - 2023 year and our plans ahead. We always take time for attendees to meet one another in small break out groups as well which has frequently resulted in some great ideas!

Thank you to all who attended our 2022 all members meeting and election in April. You can find the recording below and our updated Steering Committee can be found here.

The original meeting announcement text is below.

2022 All Members Meeting and Election: We are getting ready to start our second annual election for the central SWMS organization.

We have a great slate of candidates for Director and Secretary. All SWMS Members will have the chance to select our next group of leaders. In order to receive a ballot, you will need to be an active member as of March 29, 2022. You can check your membership status via the Memberful dashboard on our website.

The election will be open from 9 am Central Europe Time on March 30, 2022 until 11:59 pm Pacific Time on April 7, 2022. We’re a member-driven organization: that means that we need your participation in all things SWMS and the election is one of the formal ways that you can have your voice heard in the direction of SWMS. At a minimum, we need 25% of our membership to vote, so please vote today!!

Announcements

We will announce the winners at an All-Members Meeting, to be held at 8 am Pacific Time (11 am Eastern Time, 4 pm British Time) on Saturday, April 9, 2022. At this meeting, we’ll introduce the new Steering Committee and provide information about SWMS activities and finances. We will also have a Q&A period. Please register at this link.

We are using the platform Election Runner to generate secure ballots, one for each member. You will receive an e-mail from Election Runner with information about logging in with your unique voter ID and voter key. Please do not share that information with anyone else-- it can only be used once. 

The positions with more than two candidates will be decided by a ranked choice vote (in this election that is the Director position). You can read about how the ranked choice vote run-off works for Election Runner here.

If you don’t see your ballot in your e-mail inbox, please check your spam folder. Still can't find it or running into other issues with voting? Please write to us at swms.general.contact@gmail.com. If this balloting system is not accessible to you for any reason, please tell us as soon as possible so that we can work together to find a solution. 

Member Survey

Please participate in the SWMS 2022 Annual survey! We would like to hear from both current SWMS members and folks that are part of the marine science community but are not members.

The SWMS Steering Committee is committed to increasing our inclusivity. So in addition to gathering information on how to better serve our members, we would also like to collect information about any barriers to participation for other people in the marine science community.

Your replies to this survey are completely anonymous. You can also always contact us at swms.general.contact@gmail.com with suggestions or information about issues that you have faced.

Participate Here

In April 2021 SWMS held the first annual members meeting! It includes the results of the 2021 Election for new members of the SWMS Steering Committee, as well as updates from current/outgoing Steering Committee Members about SWMS activities. At the end, there is a Q&A period with the attendees. The agenda can be found here.