Angela’s Events

In my previous silent auction submission, I explained how we go about collecting items for the auction. But besides the collecting things, which takes months to do, there are some other things that we do to make the auction evening a success.

First is to select the date of your auction. We always have our auction on the same night as a home high school basketball game. This way we can get more traffic then the regular auction goers. We also have a barbecue chicken dinner meal at the same time as the auction. We have the elementary kids sell tickets for the dinner several weeks before the event. Our incentive is that each child who sells 10 dinner tickets will receive a free happy meal from McDonalds. That may not sound much to you, but let me tell you…it works! For some reason, waving a happy meal certificate in front of the kids’ noses gets the job done! Not only are you getting the community there for the auction, we also make a nice amount on the dinner. So, in essence, it is a double fundraiser.

We make sure that each item that is in the auction has a bid form to go with it. The bid form is placed directly in front of the item. In order for people to bid on the items, they must first purchase a bidding number. We charge $1.00 for this number. If someone is given the number 7, then anytime they want to bid on the item, they will write down the number 7, and then the amount they would like to purchase the item for. If someone outbids them, they can rebid as often as they would like. Now, if you are planning on doing the auction, please, please, please make sure that you have rules for your bidders. We ran into an incident the first year we had our auction (we really had no idea what we were doing and it was a learning experience). Towards the end of the auction, we had 2 ladies wanting the same item. The one lady had her friends surround the item so the other lady could not get in to rebid. We since have added a rule that if you bid on an item, please place the pen back down (we also had a lady collect all the pens so others could not bid…..pretty sad, huh?). Also the rules stated that once a bid is made, to step away from the item and give others room to bid. It is crazy to have to make such rules for adults. But for some reason it can get pretty heated…..

Of course the messy part is when people try to collect their items and pay for them. Because our first year ended up being a nightmare, we added a rule that once the auction is over, everyone must leave the cafeteria (which is where we hold our auction), and come back at 9:00 to pick up their items. This way we have time to collect all the items that belong to the same person. We categorize the winnings by the bidding numbers and it makes it go much more smoothly. If you do not do this, it can become a madhouse.

So…that is about it! There are details that were not mentioned, but that is the basics. I will warn you….it is a TON of work. But it is such a fun night, that it is well worth it.