for the man's 65th birthday...

[Kti]

I can understand the end of the birthday websites now. Many thanks for your explanation, Kate. Your sentences were highly helpful to me.
Also thank to PamK1950 and Elphaba. I didn't notice your posts about donating on Aug. 19th and 22th behind me, I'm sorry. Additionally your posts convinced me. Only to do what feels good, right thing should be.

[katann69]

My personal suggestion for a great gift is a photo album of Daisy and Andy with Wylie. He loves his daughter and dogs. K

[katann69]

He loves dogs and Wylie... a nice video of Daisy Doo and Andy with Wylie would be a really cool gift!!! K

[katann69]

That would be a really cool way to bring in his age since when he was 50, he made no 'bones' about being 50 and acted really proud to be there. I agree, he would laugh himself off the chair. LOL! What kind of stuff are we talking about?

Kay

[PamK1950]

He loves dogs and Wylie... a nice video of Daisy Doo and Andy with Wylie would be a really cool gift!!! K

First of all I have a feeling RDA has many videos of Wylie and the dogs. Second, how in the heck would we be able to get a video of them? I think he would really appreciate a donation of any size to any charity for his birthday. Just a few thoughts.

[tvero80]

I don't think we'll ever agree on what to do or not to do for his birthday.Let's only think of what would please him most and I think Kate explained it very well in another post when she and RDA talked about it in Baltimore.
Today (November 11th) In France and in other countries too is Remembrance Day (Veteran's Day,Armistice whatever you call it) the end of a dreadful,murderous war.So I won't argue, specially not today.On January 23rd, I know what I'll do, I only hope he'll celebrate his birthday surrounded with the people he loves and won't be too much in pain.
V

[Karyyl]

I would be afraid of breaking a camera if I tried to submit a photo of myself.

What about a collage of screenshots from outtakes from his shows?

Or take up a collection for one or more of his charities?

Or bcc Kate on some kind of letter-writing campaign in support of Sea Shepherd? (I don't know who or what we'd write to....some gov't or the U.N. or what?)

[EDIT] Never mind, I just looked up the Baltimore-related post. Where are the fan and charity pages she mentions in that post?

[cmbj67]

The charity page is at the button "Charity" on the left of the home page and the Fan Mail page is at the button "Contact" at the top of the home page, then scroll down and you'll find "Fan mail for RDA".

[Karyyl]

Thanks!

[xena]

dear kate,
thank you for explaining all about the past years..
i can imagine how he was pleased with the donations made.. that is really nice..
i still think we could do something else.. but for the moment it seems we will not be organised enough.. no problem..

something like the birthday websites from Kates features could be a good template. Who could create it... if not Kate does.

My name keeps popping up on this thread, so I'll add a few thoughts.

Way back in the early days, before yahoo groups and website forums and social media, "the" online group of RDA fans was the MacList, which had only a couple hundred members. Our first attempt at sending birthday wishes to RDA happened in 1999, when his assistant gave us the suggestion to support the Challengers Club and honor him with a "birthday brick."

For the next six years, various other ideas were used, usually involving a website with fan messages, videos, photos, etc, and sometimes also including donations to charity. The 2001 donation to the Klahoose Nation was one example of this, in which fans sent messages on actual postcards that represented their home countries, and money donated to Chief Kathy Francis helped to support that First Nation's efforts to protect their lands through eco-tourism. (The hiking/rafting trips to Headwall Canyon, which RDA and Robert Kennedy participated in, were part of that program.)

As the years progressed, as the online fan base grew, as more options for social media arose, the number of online RDA fans exploded. I found it nearly impossible to keep up with the number of birthday greetings sent by fans and to get them formatted for the website in time for his birthday. (This was especially difficult since fans realized that the messages would appear with the most recent first, so hundreds or even thousands of people would wait until the last minute to send their messages in order to be at the top of the list.) Also, collecting donations for a single charity became more difficult with so many different currencies, and since RDA supports a number of different charities it seemed preferable for people to choose the charity they wished to support.

So, in 2006, I changed the way birthday wishes were done on the website. I set up the Fan Mail page so that fans could leave personal messages that RDA could access on his birthday or at any time at all. And I set up the Charity page so that fans could make a donation from virtually any country to the charity of their choice and RDA would be able to see not only the total dollars increasing but could also receive the personal messages that accompanied the donations. Since then, each year in honor of RDA's birthday, fans are invited to leave a message on the Fan Mail page and to make a donation if they choose.

I wasn't sure how often RDA might stop by to read the messages or to see the accumulating donations, but it was one of the topics that came up when we had a chance to talk last month in Baltimore. He expressed amazement at the number of messages that have been sent to the site. I wondered aloud if he had noticed the Charity page recently, since there must be at least $20,000 worth of donations there. He gave his broad impish smile and declared proudly, "Twenty-two!" So it does seem that he sees and appreciates the messages and donations year-round.

For these reasons, I haven't prepared a "special" website or project for his birthday for the past 8 years or so. That being said, nothing is preventing fans from creating something special to honor his special day. While I had no plans to create a special webpage to add to the site as we had done in the past, I am certainly happy to help with something else, if my help is needed.

Kate