2021 is 75 Anniversary year for AFCEA International
AFCEA’s founders, a group of communicators led by David Sarnoff, experienced first-hand how open dialogue and strong relationships between government and industry in times of peace can help ensure effective communications during wartime.
In 1946, they established AFCEA from the U.S. Veterans Signal Association and the American Signal Corps Association with the goal of promoting communication, dialogue, and an open and ethical exchange of information between the public and private sectors. As the association’s outreach has broadened, this goal remains the pillar of AFCEA International.
In May 1946, Maj. Gen. Harry C. Ingles, Brig. Gen. David Sarnoff and a number of industrial leaders joined to found the Army Signal Association, absorbing the remaining chapters of its predecessors.
In 1947, with the unification of the services, the name was changed to Armed Forces Communications Association, and in 1954 the name evolved as the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association. In 2018, to reflect the association's expanding mission to serve the global security community, the board of directors voted to change the name to AFCEA International.
AFCEA's first chapters in Europe were founded by U.S. forces associated with NATO, Combined and U.S. Headquarters in Paris in 1952, London in 1954, Naples in 1961, Belgium in 1968, Stuttgart in 1973, Kaiserslautern in 1976 and Worms in 1977.
MEMBERSHIP TERMS AND CONDITIONS
Association’s members can be Bulgarian and foreign citizens, individuals and legal entities, members of AFCEA - International, who accept the accords of the Bulgarian chapter, regularly pays their membership fee and actively work for the organization of the chapter’s events.
The Association Membership is voluntarily.
Association members are individual and corporate:
The new members are accepted after presenting their application forms and recommendation of one AFCEA member for individuals and of two members for collective applicants. The acceptance decision is taken by the Chapter Board in one month term.
In case of membership cancelation the former member has no material obligations to the Association, except if some property is not assigned to him, no mater of the reasons for cancelation of membership.
The membership fee is determined by AFCEA - International.
For individual members it is 35 $ per year. For three year membership paid at once it is - 85 $. The membership fee includes the subscription for the ,,Signal" Magazine (12 issues per year, 5 $ each).
The minimal initial membership fee for collective members is 350 $ and 275 $ at renewal of the membership.
The collective members pay additional fee not less than 30% of the main membership fee for the Bulgarian chapter. In return the collective members receive three individual memberships and three subscriptions for the magazine.
The legal entities – collective members, who have paid additional membership fee – triple the above mentioned amount, receive the right of one free presentation during an annual conference.
Optionally companies who prefer to be only AFCEA Sofia Chapter Members, but not AFCEA International members can assign one their representative as individual member of the International association and pay additional contribution to the Bulgarian chapter. The company is registered as collective member of the AFCEA Sofia Chapter only.
This kind of limited membership is recommended to smaller companies with fewer resources.