This site contains information about the motorcycle club of Thales Nederland. Thales Nederland, or Thales for short, is a defense equipment factory with headquarters in Hengelo, the Netherlands. The link between the name of the company and 'Signal' in the name of our club has grown historically. Before the company was taken over by Thomson-CSF in 1990, it was called Hollandse Signaalapparaten B.V., Signaal for short. After the takeover by the French company, the name 'Thomson' gradually became part of the company name over the years, but 'Signaal' also remained part of it. This came to an end at the end of 2000 when all Thomson branches worldwide were renamed Thales. Because the 'scope' of our club is limited to what used to be called Signal, we have decided not to change our name.
Our club is and will remain known under the name Signaal Motorrijders, abbreviated SMr. At the time of its foundation, in 1977, this was also the abbreviation for the then state-of-the-art computer that Signaal supplied to its customers: the Signaal Miniatuur Rekenaar. This gave the founders the idea of the double meaning abbreviation.
The club is therefore linked to a company, but membership is also possible (to a limited extent) for non-signaal employees. This site was initially created for the outside members, as they do not have access to our home page on the company intranet. Moreover, it is also very useful for internal members to stay informed of the latest news via this site.
As the SMr is a subdivision of the Personnel Association(PV) of Thales Nederland, this is also the reason to divide our members into a number of categories:
· Internal and extraordinary members
· External members
· Donors
The differences between these member types can be read on the external website.
The SMr organizes various activities for its members and donors every year. An overview of the activities for this year can be found in the external website list.