Last week was [Ubuntu Community Appreciation Day](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UCADay), but for the last few weeks I have been on paternity leave, so I didn’t get a chance to blog about it. I just wanted to take a few minutes to offer some thanks.

Choosing people for *Ubuntu Community Appreciation Day* is always tough as we have so many wonderful people who actively participate in our community. From our developers to docs writers to translators to testers to advocates and more, everyone puts their brick in the wall to build a strong, competative, and proficiant Ubuntu. We would be nothing without your contributions.

I just want to throw out a few highlights though (some of these folks work at Canonical, but I consider Canonical employees to be community members too):

* **Rafal Cieslak, Janos Gyerik, and Matt Fischer** – Rafal, Janos, and Matt have been doing a wonderful job taking care of much of the [Ubuntu Accomplishments](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Accomplishments) project. The project is moving forward in leaps and bounds and their tireless efforts have been instrumental in doing so.
* **Chris Johnson** – Chris has always been a phenomenal contributor to Ubuntu and helped above and beyond the line of duty when it comes to [summit.ubuntu.com](https://summit.ubuntu.com/). Chris also contributes extensively to other parts of the project, such as [status.ubuntu.com](https://status.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-raring/).
* **José Antonio Rey and Benjamin Kerensa** – José and Ben have done a wonderful job helping with [Ubuntu On Air](https://ubuntuonair.com/) and helping for us to get more tutorial and educational content out and more opportunities for Q+A out to more people.
* **Marco Ceppi** – Marco is an all-round rockstar. His work on [Juju](https://juju.ubuntu.com/), [Ask Ubuntu](https://askubuntu.com/), bug work and other areas has been phenomenal. We really should have a ‘*Break Glass For Marco*’ box for when need a jolt of rock star.
* **My Team** – I am blessed to have a wonderful team at Canonical – Daniel, David, Jorge, Michael, and Nick all put 100% of their passion into Ubuntu and bring their expertise and guidance in helping to make Ubuntu and Canonical successful. They are not only great community leaders, but wonderful guys to work with, and great friends. Thanks, guys.
* **Jef Spaleta** – this may seem an unusual one, but we need people like Jef to keep us on the right track. A while back I considered Jef a bit of a troll and sometimes a little inarticulate, but in recent years his commentary and critique has become increasingly focused, articulate, and balanced, and I respect that in him. Thanks, Jef.

Finally, I want to thank *Mark Shuttleworth* for his continued passion for Ubuntu and Free Software. In the years I have known Mark I have never seen his passion for Ubuntu diminish; he is as excited, focused and determined to make Ubuntu successful as ever, and I am thankful for his leadership.

We have many exciting times ahead for Ubuntu and together as a community we can do wonderful things in helping to bring a powerful and elegant platform to the desktop, cloud, and devices.