Weekly News Round-Up for October 13, 2009
Wed, 10/14/2009 - 05:00 | 
Steph H-N New M...
Weekly News Round-Up Oct. 13
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Welcome to our new Advisory Board members Deborah Mullen and Babette Maxwell! Deborah Mullen is the wife of Adm. Michael Mullen who is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Babette Maxwell is one of the founders and the Executive Editor of Military Spouse magazine.
Remember, if you want BSF info and links to articles and events more than once a week, join us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and check out our Blue Star Families Blog.
If you received our Weekly News Round-Up from a friend or co-worker, please join us today. Blue Star Families is an exciting new way for military family members from all ranks and services (and our supporters!) to Connect, Support, and Empower one another. Just go to the JOIN US page on our site BlueStarFam.org.
There's a lot of excitement about Blue Star Families and the best way to make sure you are in the middle of it all is to join your local chapter. Just shoot Vivian a note at members@bluestarfam.org, and she'll get you connected.
Enjoy! Heidi & the Blue Star Families Team
Welcome to Deborah Mullen and Babette Maxwell!
Deborah Mullen and Babette Maxwell have joined the Advisory Board of BSF.
Deborah Mullen, a Navy spouse for 39 years, is married to Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Over the past 3 years, she has traveled extensively around the world with her husband in support of international relations and military family readiness. Deborah currently serves on the boards of the United Service Organization (USO) of Metropolitan Washington and the Armed Services YMCA.
Babette Maxwell is one of the founders and the Executive Editor of Military Spouse magazine, which is published by Victory Media. She is also a fourth-generation military dependent with 27 moves and 38 years dedicated to military life. Babette lives in New Orleans with her active duty husband and their three sons. She oversees all strategic relationships, print and web content production and strategic vision of Military Spouse.
BSF Facebook Cause; America's Giving Challenge -- Let's win $50,000!
BSF is now a Cause on Facebook! Our Cause, Blue Star Families, just entered in America's Giving Challenge, which gives us a chance to win $50,000! Please donate today on our Facebook Cause page. To win, between now and November 7th we have to get the most donations to our cause (every person can donate once per day and have it count as a unique donation). We can also win daily awards of $1,000 and $500 if we can get the most people to donate in any 24-hour period. The great thing about this Challenge is that it doesn't matter how much you give, but instead how much you do to encourage friends and family to get involved in our cause. We all need to come together and start promoting the cause if we want to win.
Each of us has tons of friends on Facebook who we can ask to donate to our cause. But let's think big too—can you put our cause in your email signature, can you throw a party and get people to donate through the cause when they enter, can you organize other people to go out and fundraise from all of their friends? As you reach out to your friends be sure to tell them why this cause matters to you. The possibilities are endless so let's talk about what we can do to win on the Wall of the cause or by replying to this bulletin.
Each of us has tons of friends on Facebook who we can ask to donate to our cause. But let's think big too—can you put our cause in your email signature, can you throw a party and get people to donate through the cause when they enter, can you organize other people to go out and fundraise from all of their friends? As you reach out to your friends be sure to tell them why this cause matters to you. The possibilities are endless so let's talk about what we can do to win on the Wall of the cause or by replying to this bulletin.
Operation Appreciation ~ America Says “Thanks” to Military Families
We are thrilled to help repair the disconnect 94% of military families feel with the rest of our nation* with Operation Appreciation. Through this EASY program, members of the civilian community who would like to support our military families can send cards expressing heartfelt thanks, solidarity, or just good old-fashioned encouragement. The writer can choose to write a card to the parent, spouse, or child of a military member, or to a veteran of the armed services. All of the recipients will be Blue Star Families members.
IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN RECEIVING these thank you notes, be sure to update your profile on our new website. (Detailed instructions for updating your profile are at the end of the newsletter)
This program is perfect for school age classrooms (K-12) looking for a project, community organizations, youth groups, church groups, and individual citizens who want to support our military members and their families -- but may not know how.
For more information on Operation Appreciation, please check out our website. If you have any questions, please send an email to mailto:programs@bluestarfam.org.
* Results from Blue Star Families Military Life Issues Survey. More information available here.
Congress Stops TRICARE Standard Fee Hike
Just days after a surprise announcement that the Defense Department was raising TRICARE Standard hospital inpatient co-payments by $110 per day (more than 20 percent) for retired service members (under age 65), and under a howl of protests from the National Association for Uniformed Services (NAUS) and other organizations in The Military Coalition and the National Military and Veterans Alliance, Congress included a provision in the Conference Report for the FY2010 National Defense Authorization Act (HR 2647) prohibiting the increase. It is anticipated that the Senate will vote on the conference report soon, with consideration by the House to follow.
SECNAV on Daily Show; Women to Serve on Subs
Ray Mabus, Secretary of the Navy, was the guest on The Daily Show October 6, 2009. One of the things he discussed was allowing women to serve on submarines. “This is something the [chief of naval operations] and I have been working on since I came into office,” Mabus, who was confirmed as Navy secretary in May, said last week. “We are moving out aggressively on this. “I believe women should have every opportunity to serve at sea, and that includes aboard submarines,” he told reporters following a tour of Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Newport News shipyard.
Navy Spouse Shares Deployment Story
Vivian Greentree, BSF Director of Membership, shares her deployment story with the DoD’s Family Matters blog. She shares her experiences as a spouse of a deployed sailor and a mother of two. Her husband, a Navy lieutenant, is deployed to Iraq and she has two boys who, she says, “enjoy peanut butter, trucks and air shows.”
2009 USO Gala Honors Troops, Sacrifices
Pamela Stokes Eggleston, BSF Development Director, was in attendance. Every year, the USO Gala has top celebrities, members of Congress, wounded warriors, entertainers, corporations, and others join them to celebrate those who serve.
Military Community & Family Policy eMagazine
The Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Military Community and Family Policy (MC&FP) is directly responsible for programs and policies that support community quality of life for service members and their families worldwide. This office has started a new eMagazine in order to keep military families better informed on all of their programs and events. They have a number of websites with tons of resources for military families.
Operation FREE National Bus Tour
Operation FREE is launching a national bus tour for veterans to talk about national security and climate change. The “John Madden” style buses will be wrapped in Operation FREE’s logo and will travel from Montana to Maine, and the second bus will go from Arkansas up to Nebraska and down to Florida. There are a limited number of slots on each bus and veterans are invited to join for a day, a few days, a week or the entire trip, even just to meet the bus in your community.
Frustrated by Having to Register to VOTE Every Time You Move? Tell Us All About It!
Blue Star Families wants to identify the special challenges that military members and their families face when struggling to vote and fully participate in our government. Help us by completing the BSF Voter Registration survey. We are interested in knowing:
- How often you have had to register to vote?
- What kinds of problems have you had voting – either in person or via absentee?
- Why aren’t you registered to vote?
We want to share our military family stories with key policy makers and we need your assistance. It will take fewer than 10 minutes for you to complete the online survey TODAY!
Change the World. Volunteer.
BSF Can Use Your Help. Join Our Volunteer Team.
Military families understand service. We support our service members, our country and our neighbors. Now, BSF can use your help. Whether you are a military family member, a veteran or a civilian who would like to give something back to the military community, we'd love to add you to our volunteer team. Read more about how you can help on the BSF blog or send an email to Claire at cwoodward@bluestarfam.org for more information.
This Newsletter contains links to other sites and references to third party service providers, resources or similar entities. These links and references are provided to help you identify and locate other Internet resources that may be of interest. These other sites were independently developed by parties other than Blue Star Families, Inc. and Blue Star Families, Inc. does not assume responsibility for the accuracy or appropriateness of the information contained at, or endorse the viewpoints expressed at, such sites. In providing links to other sites, Blue Star Families is in no way acting as a publisher of the material contained on those other sites and does not seek to control the content of, or maintain any type of editorial control over such sites. A link to another site should not be construed to imply that Blue Star Families, Inc. is affiliated or associated with, or is legally authorized to use any trade mark, trade name, logo or copyrighted symbol that may be reflected in the link or the description of the link to such other sites. The mention of another party or its product or service in the Newsletter should not be construed as an endorsement of that party or its product or service.
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Tags: Babette Maxwell, Deborah Mullen, Facebook Causes, Operation Appreciation, TriCare, USO Gala
