September 2024 Newsletter
A note from Amy Tuschen our National Director
Monday, 2 September is Labor Day, let’s take a moment to honor the hardworking individuals who make our communities thrive.
Our historical note, September 15, 1945, marked a pivotal moment in the history of the U.S. Army Signal Corps. On this day, the Army Security Agency (ASA) was established, as the Army’s Signals Intelligence Branch. In 1972, the ASA was merged with the Intelligence Support Agency (ISA) to form the Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM).
Before the ASA’s formation, communications intelligence collection assets were divided between the Signal Security Agency and theater commanders, leading to inefficiencies. The ASA was created to consolidate these efforts and provide centralized control over signals intelligence units.
The ASA quickly grew to become the largest Army intelligence organization, overseeing a vast network of field stations and personnel worldwide. It played a crucial role in gathering information on foreign governments, military forces, and other potential threats.
We are pleased to update our members on activities happening within the SCRA with this newsletter. We continue to grow our membership and chapters and take feedback from chapter officers and active members to continue improving our organization. If you have feedback or other information you want on the site or that you would like to receive updates on, please send it our way.
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Message from our Chapter Mentor, COL Charles D. (Dean) Smith
As a SCRA Chapter Mentor, I work with many chapters across the world to reestablish or rebuild membership in SCRA. We have noticed a challenge with email addresses and membership details. To ensure you receive information from SCRA HQs, we ask that you update your member profile at https://signalcorps.org and you set as your primary main email address a civilian address with a .com extension. Our email delivery system has significant kickbacks from .mil email addresses. Also, if you have moved or are planning to move during this PCS cycle, you can find a chapter close to you to affiliate with. Just update your member profile to show which chapter you want to be associated with. Thanks for all you do as SCRA members. Please reach out to me at chapters@signalcorps.org with any questions or if there is any way I can help.
– Request for Assistance – we need help to create workflows and processes. If you have any experience with WordPress or Office365 workflows, and are interested in assisting, please contact me at chapters@signalcorps.org
National Board update:
In conjunction with AFCEA’s Technet Augusta Conference, our National Board met including our COLs awards board. Some items that resulted from that meeting are that we are reorganizing the board by adding new members and forming an Advisory Council. Stay tuned for more updates.
Upcoming Events/Chapter News:
Annual Reports
As we enter the 4th quarter of the year, chapter leaders please be on the lookout for the annual report submission email reminder. Keeping up with your activities throughout the year will simplify this process once they are due.
National Team – Augusta, GA
Our team hosts in-person professional development (PD) events on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday of each month. These are open to any SCRA members who want to network or learn about the topics and are listed on the Signal School Facebook page. If you are interested in being a speaker for a future Professional Development event, reach out to us at events@signalcorps.org, this can be virtual if you are not in the Augusta area. If you want to see what events are upcoming, find us on Facebook at SCRASignalSchool and SCRA.National
The PD topics vary from the SCCC CPT panel for the SBOLC students; other leadership panels, learning about military service from numerous Signal leaders and retirees in the Augusta area, specific topics like networking, obtaining certifications, and financial readiness. We can also record these and share with chapters to use as PD sessions, if interested reach out to Director@signalcorps.org.
We are considering creating a Virtual Chapter particularly for members without a local chapter. If this is of interest to you, let us know! Please reach out for more info.
Ongoing & Upcoming Membership Drives
There are no ongoing membership drives! Host one for your chapter today!
Chapters can provide short updates, either for this newsletter or for our social media sites, of interest to their chapter and other members. Have any upcoming events or news for your chapter? Please contact chapters@signalcorps.org and we can share your information in the next newsletter!
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Corporate Partnerships/Career Center:
The SCRA has a Career center on our website available for members and their family members seeking employment. You must log in to the site to get access. Check it out here at the SCRA Careers site
If your organization is interested in partnering with the SCRA, we have a Corporate Partnership program in place that allows them to get recognition and includes job postings in the SCRA Careers Center.
Depending on the level, Gold, Silver, or Bronze, they also receive some individual memberships and recognition at National and Chapter events. For more info see the Corporate Partnerships Webpage
We are starting an incentive for any chapter that encourages a corporate partner to sign up, that chapter will receive a finder’s fee for their role in getting them to sign up. Share with your potential Corporate Partners the information above.
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Awards:
Learn about all the SCRA awards here: SCRA Awards
If you have an upcoming Signal Ball or other unit event that you would like to present multiple awards, please remember to allow plenty of time for approval, payment, processing, and mailing. Also, we strongly encourage a single POC for these so we can keep communication organized and mail them together. Please enter the chapter awards POC in the award application regardless of who fills out the form.
So far this year, we have presented the following awards to SCRA and Signal Corps Regiment contributors. We hope to continue seeing and awarding deserving members and volunteers in 2024! Check out all the award rosters on the website!
133 Bronze Order of Mercury Awardees
11 Silver Order of Mercury
31 Bronze Wahatchee Awardees
3 Silver Wahatchee Awardee
11 Brevet Colonel Awards
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FAQs & Articles:
We have created and will continue adding to our FAQs page which can be found on our site homepage!
This Month’s FAQ: Can the 6-month membership requirement for the BOM (Bronze Order of Mercury) be waived? Check out the FAQ Page for our response.
Articles that members can find useful from the past, as well as posts shared on our social media, can now be published on our website!
Additionally, these newsletters will be shared on the website! Check out past newsletters here!
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Memberships:
So far this year we have had 477 new members join the Association! Our current membership total is 6659 active members.
Please mention these newsletters to anyone who is a member that may not have checked in recently! They may not receive our emails and need to update their contact info. Keep in mind that .mil email addresses do not receive notifications from the site (including this newsletter!). Members should use a personal/commercial email address.
Are you aware that one of your membership incentives is also being a member of the Association of the United States Army (AUSA)? We provide membership information to the AUSA monthly, so if you hear from them about free membership, this is a legitimate incentive.
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Online Store:
This month we are giving you a chance to expand your personal or unit libraries and are discounting all the books in our store by 10% for the month of September. Happy reading! Online Store
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Museum Updates:
As a reminder our 501(c)3 partner, the Signal and Cyber Museum Society (SCMS), is our designated donor for contributions submitted to the SCRA. We have received two $100K pledges from individuals for building the new museum. If you want to learn more, check out SignalandCyberCorpsMuseum.org. If you are interested in volunteering with the SCMS to help to bring back the Signal Corps Museum to the Augusta area, which permanently closed in February 2021, or to contribute to the virtual museum, reach out to ExecDirector@FGHMS.org
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Need info regarding chapters, our store, careers, or other SCRA topics? Visit our Contact Us page and send us an email!