30 March 2009

A big thank you to VADM Carl V. Mauney (686 CO 91-94) for his generous donation to the website.  We are now 96% funded through 2010.  All future contributions will go to the expansion of the website.  

PLEASE send me an email if you have any ideas or suggestions to enhance the website.
 


26 March 2009

Thanks to the following people for their recent donations:

Greg Serwich
Duard Perron
Mike Brown
Luke Willette
Matt Lee
Phil Lyston

The website is now 65% funded for two years.

Thanks to Dan Lord for filling in a few blanks on the names in some of the pictures.

New photos have been added courtesy of Dom Azzarito.

24 February 2009

Thanks to former CO Roderic Wolfe for his donation to the upkeep of the website.  We are just over 50% funded for two years of maintaining the website at it's current size.

I have been in touch with former CO Rusty Pickett, and he has passed the word to several shipmates about the website.  We have received over 800 hits to the site!  CAPT Pickett has maintained contact with Mrs. Eastman, daughter of L. Mendel Rivers, and he said that she is still active in "keeping the name alive". 

I have been thinking giving a lot of thought to officially forming an association related to the 686.  It's a lot of work and would require by-laws and the election of officers.  Once I have all my ducks in a row, I will put more out about it. 

The next logical step after forming an association would be to have a reunion.  I would love to have a reunion set up to coincide with the 10th anniversery of the boat's decommissioning, which would be in May, 2011.  I think that's enough time to get something together.

Check the crew list and the contact page for new names, and keep spreading the word!



11 January 2009

Happy New Year to everyone.  I hope your holidays were enjoyable.

I would like to thank CAPT Brad "Fleetwood Mac" McDonald for his generous donation to the upkeep of the website.  Thank you, SIR !!

More thanks go out to Rob Cacchiola for sending more pictures.  Check them out on the photos and sea stories page.  Also, Rob sent me the Decommissioning pamplet.  He sent it as individual jpg files and I tried to make it one PDF file, but as you will see, I didn't get the pages all in the same orientation.  I will work on that.

Also, there have been a few crew members added to the list, so check them out and see if you recognize anyone.



21 December 2008

Acknowledgements:

Thanks to Dom Azzarito for his generous donation to the upkeep of the website!
Thanks to Rob Cacchiola for updating the list of CO's and for the pics.
Thanks to Greg Tanner for the pic of the boat.
Thanks to Dave Forman for the commissioning pic and backing up Rob on the list of CO's

11 December 2008

It's been a while since I've been able to work on the website.  I had quite an experience in the last few days in that I went underway on USS WASP (LHD-1) to do an assessment of their Main and Secondary Drainage systems.  It's a good thing they taught us about eductors in MM/BT 'A' School back in the day or I wouldn't have had a clue about what I was looking at!

Anyway, I have made several upgrades and modifications to the website:

 - Added a "DONATE" button that will allow anyone to contribute funds to the upkeep of the website.  The more money we put in to it, the more "bells and whistles" we can have to play with.

 - Added a page that is PASSWORD PROTECTED to allow crew members to get contact info from old shipmates.  If you sign (or have already signed) the guestbook and can be validated as a crew member, I will email you the username and password for that page.  I hope to be able to list everyones name and email address, but if you do not wish to have your information published, please let me know.

 - I desperately need to finish the lists of former CO's and COB's.  Can anybody help me out????  Does anyone have an old Change of Command pamphlet that lists all past CO's (Fleetwood Mac, are you out there?  You can't tell me you don't have an old copy of your COC pamphlet preserved for posterity!)

 - Also, please email me old pictures or sea stories, or anything you would like me to put on the website.  I was hoping to be able to set the website up so that everyone would be able to "log in" and post pics and stories themselves, but I don't have that capability right now.  Maybe there are some upgrades available that can make that possible (hint, hint).

- One last thing...I KNOW there are some of you out there who are light years ahead of me on computers and HTML code and stuff that might have ideas on how to make this website better (any old Reactor Operators out there?  LOL )




25 November 2008

We have received quite a few guestbook entries already.  I hope I can make this website a useful tool that you will feel compelled to visit frequently.

Please consider sending any photos you may have so that I can upload them to the website.  Also, please give me some feedback on any features you would like to see.  I would personally like to set it up where you can upload your own photos and sea stories to the site, as well as invite members to chat.  In order to do that, I will have to provide password protection, then get the login info out to everyone. 

Please bear with me while I continue to develop the site.

Sincerely,
Brian




24 November 2008

Shipmates,

Good News!  It's official!  We now have a website.  www.riversdelivers.org  It is very crude at this point and I will continue to work on it and make it better.  I plan to send a similar email to everyone via the "together we served" website to try to get the word out.  Feel free to pass this on to anyone else that you have contact information for. 

 To start with, we should all sign the guestbook.  There is also a blog that you can post to and start discussions, as well as a chatroom option.  My vision for the website is that it will be a place where we can all keep in touch with each other, post sea stories, photos, news, and discussions.  It will probably take weeks, if not months for me to figure out how to make everything work and be user friendly.  I also need to ensure that it is secure so that spammers can't get our contact info easily.

 I also intend to officially establish a USS L. MENDEL RIVERS Association.  I need to do some research on how to do that to make sure I go about it properly in the legal sense.  I don't know if I can just make it and move on, or if I have to file any official paperwork to become a non-profit organization.  If anybody has any gouge on that process, please let me know.

 Now the not so good news...This website can only be as good as what we put in to it.  I need everyone's support, both creatively, and financially.  The cost of setting up and maintaining the website is significant.  If anyone is interested in making a small monetary contribution to help me offset the expense, it would be greatly appreciated.  You can send money to me via PayPal or you can send a check or money order.  Just send me an email at brian.daugherty@riversdelivers.org and I will send you the necessary information.  DONATIONS ARE STRICTLY VOLUNTARY.  I am thinking that I will post all donations in the news section, so please let me know if you would like to remain anonymous (either your name, the amount, or both).  I am certainly donating my time and I am only looking to offset the physical costs of the website.  I will make public any balance of funds that I maintain.

 Again, I expect this to be a community effort.  Please keep me honest with things like posting pictures and stuff to make sure I don't violate any copyrights or anything like that.  Also, your CREATIVE input is desperately needed.  What do we want the website to do for us???

 That's all for now.  Check the website frequently for updates.  Your feedback on any and all issues is greatly appreciated.

 Sincerely,

Brian Daugherty

Webmaster (for now)




23 November, 2008

After having lunch with former CO Brad McDonald and seven other shipmates, it was decided that I would make this website so we could reach out to as many former crew members as possible.  I am quite the novice at this website stuff, so bear with me as it all comes together.  I hope to have a blog as well as a place for everyone to log in and share their contact information.