[texhax] Nov 2014 TUG news: TUGboat, election, book reviews, calendar

[TeX Users Group]

Dear TeX users,

TUG President Steve Peter has asked me (Jim Hefferon) as Vice President
to send out this newsletter.

- First, TUGboat (http://tug.org/TUGboat).  Issue 35:2 has been published
and probably you have received it by now.  Issue 35:3 has also been
published but it is probably still in processing when you get this so
you will see it soon.  Oh, and because issue 34:2 was published a year
ago, it is now publicly available.

- You may notice in the latest TUGboat that we have an election
coming up; see http://tug.org/election for all the information but in
brief there are nine directors whose terms run out in 2015.  In
addition, Steve Peter has stated that he will step down from being
President.  I should mention my intention to run for the office.

All of these individuals, continuing or not, have done a great job and
we can't thank them enough.  TUG has benefited from a history of good
direction and continues to have a need for informed and committed people
who are willing to serve.  Some of the current directors have stated
that they will run again, and that's great, but if you have an interest
then please visit the election page and consider running.  (That page
has contact information for the TUG office and for the Elections
Committee, if you have any questions.)

- The TUG site has three new highlights of books that you may enjoy
(http://tug.org/books).
  - Practical \LaTeX, by George Gr\"atzer 
  - Apprendre \`a programmer en~\TeX, by Christian Tellechea
  - Let's Learn \LaTeX, by S. Parthasarathy
Thank you to the reviewers William Adams, Jacques Andr\'e, and 
Nicola L. C. Talbot.

- Another item that you may be interested in comes from Peter Wilson.
His Hiroshige calendar for 2015 is now linked from http://tug.org/calendar.  
They are just beautiful!

- There is one more thing this month but it is less of a concrete item
than a preview.  As a small nonprofit, we depend on our members for
everything, including for the financial basis that allows us to support
maintenance and development of TeX and friends.  Recently our membership
numbers have seen a slow, but perceptible, decline.

If you are not now a member, please consider joining, and if you are a 
lapsed member please consider rejoining.  Doing that is easy at 
http://tug.org/join.html.

Soon we will send you information on a membership drive (Board members
are working through the details as I write this).  We are particularly
pleased to see interest in online forums from TeX-ers who are young, or
who at least seem to me to be young!  So one thing our initiative will
hope to do is to thank members who have encouraged new folks to join TUG
also. Please look for that mailing.

Thank you, and enjoy your TeX-ing!
Jim Hefferon
TUG Vice President