Bradlands Memorial

January 8, 2010 2:00 PM

MeFite judith is arranging a memorial to our dear friend Bradlands with his employer, the Repertory Theater of St. Louis.

You can help by PayPal-ing your contribution to ffrvscnt at gmail.com in the next few days. I've asked Judith to jump in with more details like perhaps what sort of memorial we'd like to contribute toward.

Brad's great love was the theater so I think this will be a wonderful tribute to a dear friend and an all-around wonderful person. update: easier Chip-in page here so it's clear what the goal is, etc.

posted by jmcnally to MetaFilter-Related at 2:00 PM (25 comments total)

Given our recent experiences with Paypal and donations, is there another way of contributing?
posted by ocherdraco at 2:18 PM on January 8, 2010

By which I mean: I want to help! I just want to make sure the money actually gets there!
posted by ocherdraco at 2:18 PM on January 8, 2010

Thanks for the post, jmcnally. The original thread about Brad had fallen off the front page of MetaTalk, so it will help for people to have another thread about the memorial plans specifically. More details from my conversation with the Rep here, but basically it's open for us to do whatever we want. I told the Rep we expected to raise $3-5k, and they said they'd get back to me with some thoughts as to what Brad might have liked to see that money go towards. We'd also need to figure out wording for a plaque or whatever, so please post any ideas you might have! Feel free to MeMail me if you have specific questions.
posted by judith at 2:19 PM on January 8, 2010

I share your concerns, ocherdraco, but after investigating the various options, this seems like the most stable platform with the lowest fees, and I'm willing to take my chances. I can also accept Amazon Payments, but that's a bit more complicated. MeMail me if you'd prefer to go that way - I'd need your name, email address & amount of donation, and then I'd need to send you a message requesting that, and then you'd need to respond directly to that message.
posted by judith at 2:22 PM on January 8, 2010

I'll do that. Thanks, judith.
posted by ocherdraco at 3:14 PM on January 8, 2010

Yeah, I think paypal would work fine in this case. It's only if you were saying it was a charity fundraiser that would raise their ire.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 4:06 PM on January 8, 2010

People could probably also send a check. It'd get there relatively quickly, and most no fees at all.
posted by cjorgensen at 6:23 PM on January 8, 2010

In the other thread, Christine suggested ChipIn.com, which takes no fees, but allows us to make a memorial page, which I did! People can of course send individual checks - I just thought it might be easier to have less paperwork and such for the Rep, and allow us to aggregate an amount for planning purposes.
posted by judith at 7:29 PM on January 8, 2010

Aha, just found out about the ChipIn page. Is there any way to let us know the total from ALL sources (ie. PayPal, ChipIn, checks, Amazon payments) on an ongoing basis? Maybe in this thread, updated once a day or so?
posted by jmcnally at 7:53 PM on January 8, 2010

I'll do my best, but can't make any promises. So far we've raised $210.
posted by judith at 8:20 PM on January 8, 2010

Do you want me to edit jmcnally's post with the ChipIn information?
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:23 PM on January 8, 2010

Yes, please!
posted by judith at 8:36 PM on January 8, 2010

Is there any way to let us know the total from ALL sources (ie. PayPal, ChipIn, checks, Amazon payments) on an ongoing basis? Maybe in this thread, updated once a day or so?

Judith is already doing so much to manage this effort, let's let her update us at her convenience. I'm sure she will not leave us hanging for huge spans of time. THANK YOU JUDITH!
posted by girlhacker at 8:44 PM on January 8, 2010

All set, and I chipped in, and I am going to bed.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:45 PM on January 8, 2010

We have a total of $1800 contributed & promised thus far. I'm touched by your generosity & will continue to collect for another week or so (I think we can get to $5k) before we send it off to the Rep.
posted by judith at 3:09 PM on January 9, 2010

ChipIn was easy to use and worked fine with PayPal. Thanks judith!
posted by tommasz at 4:35 PM on January 9, 2010

Thanks for setting this up -- ChipIn + PayPal was no issue at all.
posted by genehack at 7:25 PM on January 10, 2010

We're up to $2,165 contributed and promised. In addition, I'm coordinating the parallel effort for another small web community that loved Brad, and we've raised $2,895 there, for a total of $5060 to the Rep. I want to encourage those of you who still want to donate to do so - no amount is too small. I'll follow up with the theater this week and report back with what they propose to do with the money to best honor Brad.
posted by judith at 8:45 PM on January 10, 2010

Thank you, judith.
posted by dhartung at 10:58 AM on January 11, 2010

Thanks so much for putting this together-- just chipped.
posted by pnoeric at 5:43 PM on January 11, 2010

I'm in.

Thanks, judith.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 7:19 PM on January 11, 2010

We've now raised about $2600 here and $3000 in the other camp, for a total of $5600 to the Rep. I'd like to finish up the collections this week, so I can give the Rep a realistic sense of how much to expect. Thanks for your generosity in remembering our friend.
posted by judith at 8:34 AM on January 14, 2010

Don't know if folks are still monitoring this thread, but we're up to about $7k total (split between Mefi & the other folks) and I'll talk to the Rep this week about next steps & report back.
posted by judith at 10:33 PM on January 17, 2010

I'm keeping an eye on both the Brad threads here on MeFi, Judith... thanks for the update.
posted by pnoeric at 1:31 PM on January 19, 2010

Thanks, Judith, for the update, and all your work. Glad to see the response.
posted by jmcnally at 2:34 PM on January 20, 2010