NATO HQ ARRC - Journal, April 2003

Electronic Bluey's

Maj Brett Duxbury, PCS

The British Forces Postal and Courier Services (PCS) has a deployable electronic letter service known as the e-bluey.

The Director of the Defence PCS (DDPCS) has granted the authority for all Non-UK personnel, within the HQ ARRC Group only, to use the e-bluey system on operations.

The system has been successfully operated recently in Afghanistan and has been established in the Falkland Islands for some time. The system is completely confidential and has an originator to recipient time of approximately 24-36 hours.

The e-bluey system allows the relatives and friends of service personnel to maintain personal and private contact with them whilst they are serving on operations or exercises (more than 60 days duration). E-bluey allows users to compose a letter on a PC, using the e-bluey programme, and send it.

E-bluey combines speed through a specially tailored application provided by Superletter.com, and privacy via an integrated mail printer that prints, folds envelopes and seals e-blueys without anyone seeing the content. E-bluey's can be sent back from the theatre by the reciprocal route.

Within 12 to 36 hours e-blueys will have reached their intended recipient. Letters can be composed using popular word processing packages, such as Microsoft Word, and then copied and pasted into the system.

It is delivered first class in the UK, or through the British Forces Post Office (BFPO) system to addresses overseas. Personnel based in JHQ should direct the e-bluey to BFPO 40 where it will be downloaded by BFPO staff, confidentially printed and then collected by either the Unit Post Orderlies, for normal onward mail arrangements when on operations, or for Non-UK personnel, by JHQ-based NSE staff. The NSE staff will then be responsible for forwarding the e-bluey to the addressee, wherever they are worldwide.

Using the e-bluey address book you can also order flowers, for delivery to the UK and addresses in Germany, and personalised greeting cards for delivery anywhere in the world.

On rare occasions, when letters cannot be downloaded in the theatre of operations they are destined for, they are downloaded and printed in BFPO London depot and then forwarded by Airmail.

Registration for the e-bluey service can be completed at the BFPO website; www.bfpo.org.uk, by following the e-bluey link. Improvements to the system are being made all the time and updates can be found at the BFPO website.

Letters from home delivered electronically to HQ ARRC on future operations