Happy Holidays to all Bugle readers! We have some interesting material for you in this edition, but first the editors would like to put out a call for contributors for a bumper New Year edition of the Bugle. We hope to run multiple book reviews and at least one op-ed, but the content of any contribution you make is entirely up to you. A volunteer to draft a "Year in Review" of Milhist events would be greatly appreciated, though. If you are unsure if the item you wish you submit is within our scope, please drop a query at the newsroom talk page, but we have traditionally accepted any quality proposal that could conceivably be within the interest of our readers.
In project news, nominations for one of Milhist's most prestigious awards, the "Military historian of the Year", will open on 1 January 2012 on the main project talk page. They will run for one week before the voting period, 8 to 22 January. The editor with the most votes will receive a golden wiki and the title, while the next two places will receive silver and bronze wikis. Please think about who you would like to nominate, as the coordinators hope to have nominees from all corners of the project.
There is also an ongoing effort to complete and standardize the Academy, Milhist's effort to create an online training school to assist all editors, old and new. Some ideas for missing articles can be seen in the redlinks here, but ideas for what is missing from the current Academy page are sought on the main project talk page under "Academy".
The contest department has completed its fifty-fourth month of competition. A total of 50 articles were submitted by 7 editors. Sturmvogel 66 came first with 116 points from 22 entries, followed by Parsecboy with 60 points from 8 entries. They receive the Chevrons and the Writer's Barnstar, respectively. An honourable mention goes to Ed!, who placed third with 55 points. Buggie111, Djmaschek, LeonidasSpartan and The Bushranger also fielded entries. Please submit any articles you are working on for the December contest now.