[UK-TUG] Formal notice of AGM

[Dr Nicola L C Talbot]

@Jay wrote:

> thank you for the constructive suggestions about how to meet.  I think
> the medium is the message; speaker-talks on zoom are not the same as
> chit-chat. Both are desirable, but need different platforms and support
> different numbers of participants. For the former, all 80(ish)  UKTUG
> members could productively meet to hear a talk, and ask a limited number
> of questions. . I'm not clear which software supports chit-chat, where
> the topic moves over time, as do the participants. Could moodle be
> co-opted or is it too heavy a tool/inappropriate?

I think you're right. Large numbers do make it harder for anything other 
than a speaker-talk.

I've not used moodle. The IMA Virtual Maths Teas use GoToMeeting, but 
I've not used that either, so I don't know how well it works or how it 
compares to Zoom, Teams etc.

I agree that chit-chat is far harder to conduct virtually. In real life 
it's much easier to chat with the person you happen to be sitting next to.

> I certainly think that the social aspect of UKTUG should be maintained,
> but outside UKTUG.  I also think that those UKTUG members who value the
> TeXlive DVD should access it  via Joseph, as he has offered. rather than
> via UKTUG.  I envisage a lightweight "friends of TeX" structure will be
> created independently of the onerous and now inappropriate constitution
> of UKTUG.  Those two behaviours  would maintain the key benefits of
> membership for UKTUG members after UKTUG's dissolution.  It's not clear
> whether the lightweight social structure should be funded by UKTUG.
> Funding transfer  could only happen  pre-dissolution. Discuss please.

For me, personally, the principle benefits of UK-TUG are the TeX Live 
DVD (because it's way more convenient if you have an iffy Internet 
connection and have multiple devices to update annually) and the speaker 
meetings (which unfortunately I haven't been able to attend as many as I 
would've liked). If these can be achieved with a lightweight "friends of 
TeX" then I will support UKTUG's dissolution.

The transfer of funds is always a thorny issue. I believe that TeX funds 
should be used to further TeX development and use, such as supporting 
TeX projects, supporting CTAN, and supporting TeX training days.

Demand for training days has dwindled to an unsustainable level. The 
cost of hiring a venue and paying travel expenses for organisers can 
only be justified if enough people want to turn up. The pandemic has put 
up an extra barrier to this. Remote training days would be very 
difficult to organise (far more so than a remote meeting). I know that 
remote learning due to the pandemic has made computer science labs 
particularly difficult to run as it requires screen sharing, which is 
more reasonable for the controlled environment of a university network 
than for members of a volunteer-run organisation.

So, while in the past I would've supported funding TeX training days, I 
don't think it's appropriate now. I believe it's much better to 
concentrate on supporting the core backbone of TeX: projects and CTAN. 
It's time-consuming for developers to create and maintain software and 
packages. It's time-consuming for the CTAN team to process uploads and 
ensure the relevant files reach the TeX distributions.

Disclaimer: I write software and packages that are on CTAN so I'm not 
impartial, but the recent breaking changes to the LaTeX kernel have 
brought to light packages in use that have been unmaintained for years. 
There's no point funding promotion of TeX if the TeX structure is 
allowed to crumble through lack of support.

Regards
Nicola