Merge pull request scala#428 from scala/community-representative-announcement-blog

Blog post announcing Community Representative

Author: heathermiller

blog/_posts/2016-04-29-sc-community-representative.md

@@ -0,0 +1,46 @@
+---
+layout: blog
+post-type: blog
+by: Jon Pretty
+title: Scala Center Appoints Bill Venners as Community Representative to the Advisory Board
+---
+
+At Scala Days, the [Scala Center](https://scala.epfl.ch/) will hold its first
+Advisory Board meeting. The Advisory Board comprises primarily of delegates
+from our sponsors. But, we exist as an organization to support the *entire*
+Scala community, so for that reason, our founding documents allow for a
+"community representative" to sit on the board; someone who can speak for the
+whole community.
+
+## A Community Representative
+
+Who should fulfil the role of community representative is an important choice
+for The Scala Center to make. The Scala community needs someone independent,
+technically capable, and universally respected. So Heather, Martin and I
+considered a few names we thought could take on the task.  It's an indication
+of the wealth of great people who actively involve themselves in our community
+that the three of us came up with so many potential candidates, but close to
+the top of everyone's shortlist was one person: Bill Venners. And we're
+delighted to announce today that Bill has accepted our invitation, and will be
+the community representative on the Advisory Board.
+
+Bill is best known as the author of the [ScalaTest](http://www.scalatest.org/)
+testing framework and co-author of the Programming in Scala book, soon to have
+its third edition published. But he also develops the Scalactic library, is a
+frequent speaker at Scala conferences, and offers training in Scala through
+[Artima](http://www.artima.com/) and [Escalate
+Software](http://www.escalatesoft.com/).
+
+Bill has a long history of involvement in Scala, and I remember back to the
+early days of Scala's development when Bill would take the time to engage in
+long discussions with the other members on the Scala mailing lists as we tried,
+together, to figure out Scala, its various features, and how we could best
+employ them to our advantage. Looking back, I can't think of anyone who devoted
+more time to listening to and trying to understand the various different ideas
+(and Scala is a language that accommodates alternative perspectives more than
+almost any other!) being discussed within the Scala community.
+
+We are extremely happy that Bill is going to join the advisory board and
+continue providing his valued guidance on some of the important issues that
+Scala will face in the future.
+