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+\centerline{\bf TUG worldwide}
+\smallskip
+\noindent
+Although TUG has embraced its international role, it has
+perhaps done so a little late. It is difficult to say why
+that has happened. There is clearly a chicken and egg
+problem here. TUG, with a massively US membership was
+hardly likely to spend lots of effort on European (or
+Asian, or Australian, etc) activities when these groups
+represent a very small part of the membership. Equally,
+these other members (or potential members) can hardly
+have felt that TUG membership was particularly valuable
+when so much attention was focussed on the US activities.
+
+The adoption of the European and Japanese representatives
+as TUG Vice-Presidents is one useful step, although none
+of the `new' Vice-Presidents have received any guidelines
+specifying how their duties are in any way different from
+an ordinary board member of TUG. They are certainly not
+of the same status as the TUG Vice President (no
+hyphen!).  
+
+The creation of a TUG `shop' at Aston
+University as a way of speeding up and simplifying
+processing of orders for TUG materials may also be a
+useful step, although it is unclear just how this will
+operate.\looseness-1
+
+Within Europe there appear to be (at least) two possible
+directions for TUG. 
+
+On the one hand, TUG could provide an
+umbrella organisation for all \TeX\ users. To do this
+successfully would probably require a different board
+with much more international representation. It still
+feels very US-oriented. The very fact that the
+organisation is sited in Providence means that it will
+always be felt to be `American'. The alternative of
+re-establishing an ITUG (International-TUG) in (say)
+Luxembourg or Brussels (about the only two locations
+in Europe politically acceptable to the French and
+Germans) hardly seems credible. Part of the
+problem revolves around TUG income. Of TUG's \$660,000
+income, only about one quarter  derives from
+membership subscriptions, while the remainder derives
+principally from US-generated income: about equally
+from courses\slash conferences and sales. 
+Naturally most of the sales are within the US, just as
+most of the courses and conferences occur in the US. I
+suspect that there is an effective discouragement to
+putting resource into expanding membership, since it
+brings in very little extra income.
+
+
+ It is therefore
+difficult to see how such an `international' operation
+could ever be funded, except by each `constituent'
+organization paying a `levy' to the ITUG. Unless the
+benefits were manifest and universal, this would be an
+enormous task.  The other alternative is that the
+constituent organizations go ahead and organize themselves
+into some sort of free-wheeling federal structure. It
+would not be unreasonable to have a European federal
+structure with {\dante}, GUTenburg, NTG, the Nordic group,
+Hun\TeX, the Czechoslovakian group and the UK \TeX\ Users
+Group. Most of these groups already organise their own
+conferences and meetings, have various degrees of user
+services and activities, and have grown up in reponse to
+TUG's apparent inability, or indifference to assist in the
+organisation of European groups. If TUG does not clearly
+define its position with regard to other user groups, I
+can (sadly) see this parallel structure developing.
+
+Some local user groups appear to be forming in the US,
+but this has never been  actively pursued by TUG, as far as
+I can see. They seem to be there despite TUG.
+
+\section{A solution}
+The simplest and most direct way for TUG to circumvent
+these problems is to demonstrate that TUG is concerned
+with the long term development of \TeX; that membership
+of TUG ensures involvement in that development; that
+there are real and tangible advantages to TUG membership,
+wherever in the world you live. I suggest the following
+program for TUG:
+\item{$\bullet$}Offer discounts on books and software to
+members; \item{$\bullet$}Provide an electronic archive to the \TeX\
+sources;
+\item{$\bullet$}Distribute public domain \TeX ware software
+for the popular types of personal computers;
+\item{$\bullet$}Be seen to be involved in typesetting from \TeX;
+\item{$\bullet$}Unequivocally embrace \LaTeX;
+\item{$\bullet$}Support local groups,  regional meetings and small
+conferences; 
+\item{$\bullet$}Secure the future by 
+\itemitem{$\triangleright$}providing a forum for proposals
+for \TeX\ enhancement; 
+\itemitem{$\triangleright$}addressing the wider issues of
+electronic document interchange;
+\itemitem{$\triangleright$}being involved in internal and external
+standards.
+\bigskip
+\noindent Adoption of such a program is in some ways an
+extension of what already occurs, but does have some more
+radical departures from the status quo. The most
+important thing is that it is a statement of intent which
+can be nailed to the cathedral door.
+\author{\mwc}