The Social Media Group (Left to right): Kevin Holmes, Thomas Gargot, Clara Feteanu, together with Mariana Pinto da Costa (not pictured)
Dear EFPT colleagues and friends,
Introduction
The first electronic EFPT Newsletter in the Summer 2014, opened by 73 members, marked a huge success for an organisation that started in 1992. However, we perceived that we could still do much more.
The EFPT Annual Action Plan 2014-2015 established as a main goal to improve communications by: restructuring the website, creating an EFPT Calendar highlighting important dates for trainees, being active in Social Media, having a regular Newsletter and promoting the image of EFPT through our official video.
This represented a significant workload and therefore the President proposed and the Board agreed to establish a new group, the Social Media Group, composed of two nominated General Managers: the Social Media Coordinator (Clara Feteanu) and the Newsletter Editor (Kevin Holmes), together with the IT secretary (Thomas Gargot) and the President (Mariana Pinto da Costa). Together we became a very active group!
We hope thanks to our work that discovery, follow-up and involvement in EFPT will be easier: promoting our WG’s, involving our NTA’s and strengthening collaborations with our Collaborator Associations. Now we hope you, as psychiatry trainees, have a useful loudspeaker to stand and speak up to “shape the future of psychiatry”.
Message from Thomas GARGOT, Information and Technologies Secretary, from France
Dare to try
I had some previous experience on creating a website for a very small association. I suggested some help last year for the wikipedia page. During the London forum, I dared to try to stand for the IT position to learn more, to improve my collaborative and European experience. However, I really decided just at the last minute since I wasn’t sure initially I had time to commit to EFPT, but I don’t regret it!
Website improvements
Our website was quite old and not very convenient. One author can’t manage the growth of our association, so we decided to work on an open access content management system ‘Wordpress’ to share the work between ourselves
We changed our website during the last months:
– We improved our flyer which was distributed during several congresses
– We developed an official EFPT calendar to promote international days linked to mental health, our activities and yours. You can subscribe to this calendar or to specific events
– We created an official EFPT videos page
– We promoted the use of an EFPT template presentation, with relevant information about EFPT
– We compiled a list of publications by EFPT members that is available at our website, with links to the publications
– We created an EFPT signature to be used by EFPT members in their electronic correspondences
– We promoted the Guidelines for use of EFPT social media, using them wherever needed
Private Website
The private website will gather information for people who are familiar with EFPT and want to get involved in our activities.
You can see and contribute to our private website for which you must register here! (please contact if you have any problem : itsecretary@efpt.eu)
You’ll find:
– different toolkits (how to use our social media, contribute to our newsletter, request EFPT support for an event, use doodle, Skype, create a survey, guidelines for articles… ) that shall be presented at the EFPT forum.
– country reports
– official documents
– a place to save your working group files
– a place to get familiarised with WordPress
Wikipedia
We are finally in Wikipedia after several years of trying, which was acknowledged by several EFPT past board members (EFPT alumni) and other international associations, such as by UEMS!
Other Achievements
We created an IT focus group with EFPT trainees and previous IT secretaries. They helped me a lot to share ideas and to collect insightful feedback to improve our work.
We applied to the international association award which was the opportunity to discover this great association and think a little about the perspectives of our work. Unfortunately we will need to apply again next year to definitely win a prize!
Finally
I am very happy with this opportunity of being part of the Social Media Group as an IT secretary, since it helped me to improve my collaboration skills in English in an international project, to meet new people and travel in Europe.
Message from Kevin Holmes, Newsletter general manager, from UK
Creating the position of Editor
At the 2014 Forum I was in the right place at the right time to take up the reigns as first Newsletter Editor. I had only an inkling of the tasks ahead but I left the London Forum filled with youthful enthusiasm.
Initial Challenges
The first task was to carry out a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis. This showed a number of positive starting points but also highlighted that there was much to be done. Working with the Board we decided that 4 Newsletters should be produced each year to mark the seasons together with News versions to publicise important events.
My first task was to tackle Mailchimp!! Anyone faced with learning new software will sympathise with the trials and tribulations of asking a computer to please do what you want when it has its own ideas! Nevertheless, its binary stubbornness was no match for my excessive emotional outbursts, and threats to pull the plug on its silicon existence paid off. In addition, Alice Ashby (nee Lomax) was extremely helpful in sharing her experiences of the first Newsletter publication.
Successes
The first ‘new edition’ EFPT News was launched in September 2014 publicising the EFPT activities at the upcoming World Congress of Psychiatry in Spain. This was distributed and opened by 96 members.
Following the success of this, the Autumn 2014 Newsletter was published, reaching 125 members, Winter 2015 published reaching 180 members and finally the EFPT News March 2015 (advertising EFPT activities at the EPA in Vienna) was published and opened by 163 members.
Aims for the Future
This year has seen the publication of 4 Newsletter editions and 2 News editions, successfully bringing a new flexible style to the EFPT communications and reaching ever-increasing numbers. The goals for the future will now be to take stock of these successes and build on this solid base. But what will the future of the EFPT Newsletter and News look like?
I believe that this is just the start and an exciting position to venture forward from. So watch this space! ….and talk with the Board if you are interested in being considered for this position.
Social media
Thanks to the concerted efforts of Clara Feteanu, significant achievements were made to launch EFPT into the world of Social Media, centralising and promoting EFPT social media accounts in all the possible ways.
We are now quite active on the following social media :
– on Facebook Group with yet 259 members
– on Twitter with 393 followers
– on Linkedin with 161 members
We have been favourited, liked, shared and retweeted by many trainees, trainee organisations and internationally renowned organizations, such as EPA, UEMS, WPA and WHO in the EU.
In addition:
– You can use the EFPT banner of this year’s Forum in Porto
– We improved the visibility of our mailing list and now have 438 subscribers
We invite you to be involved
– subscribe to our groups and share our website and social media accounts on your national trainee association website, mailing list and social media accounts ! You can find help on how to use these tools in the toolkits.
– discuss these topics, please join our google group : efpt-itgroup@group.google.com.
– request EFPT institutional support to your events
– propose improvements for a new EFPT banner, please send your proposal to itsecretary@efpt.eu
Don’t be shy! Send us your feedback!
Lastly
We hope these achievements will be a source of inspiration for you, your national and local trainees associations!
We have shown our initial experience in technology and shared some communication tips, but we need your feedback and ideas for the improvements of our tools, activities and statements. We hope these efforts will help to empower trainees’ needs, values and work throughout Europe.
We look forward to seeing you soon in Porto!
Thomas Gargot
EFPT Information and Technologies Secretary
Kevin Holmes
EFPT Newsletter Editor
On behalf of the Social Media Group