David Saunders, Returning Officer for the election of a new Chair, writes
We have received one valid nomination for Chair of UK-TUG, and so there will be no need for a ballot. I’m pleased to say that Dr Alun Moon has been elected as Chair, and will take office at the end of the AGM on Saturday.
We are very pleased to welcome Dr Moon to the role. He takes over as the Chair of UK-TUG at the end of the AGM on Saturday. Alun writes:
Let me introduce myself, I’m Alun and I’ve been a LaTeX user since 1982 (‘Eee when I were a lad we ‘ad t’ make do wit’ teletype’). Don’t worry this isn’t an introduction for TeXies Anonymous. TeX and friends have been a useful tool through my time in HE, though in my institution I’m a rarity. A colleague once likened the circle of TeX users to the ‘escape committee’. I’ve seen TeX grow with more and more packages; powerful graphics, presentations, pdf support, and more. In this age of the wiki, just about every wiki system I’ve looked at has the capability to use LaTeX as a back-end formatter for mathematics, many publishers support it for submissions. A Google search for material will show the range of organisations that use it. There are even apps for smart phones to write TeX. In this internet age we could be looking at a golden age of LaTeX.
There are three things I would like to encourage. Advocacy: we know LaTeX is good, but we still have to convince a sometimes sceptical world. Training: we can continue with the already excellent training and support material that we have produced. Usability: can we make TeX usable? My kids have been exposed to WYSIWYG words from day one at school, what can we do to make LaTeX usable for them?