I have been to several silent auctions in the past and have noticed a few things.
First, they generally do not generate as much money as a live auction.
Second, in the way that GWAPA would need to do it, it would take up a lot of space.
Third, there are always going to be questions that need answered and it is best to do this at one time.
We just need to be more mindful of the conversations that are going on during the auction. It is rude and distracting to the volunteers that run the auction. Perhaps some forethought should be given to where to run the auction from. IMO the last one at Ghazanfar's house might have been better if it were away from the refreshments. I know this may be hard to do as each house has a different arrangement. I will still be at the next one
Sherry, thanks for your good suggestion. I agree with Mike that if we had the space, this could be something to try, for at least a portion of the items. I know that as the number of items is increasing, it's taking awhile to get through the auction, and with the room temperature at the meeting, it was a little bit uncomfortable for everyone.
I think we couple address this in a couple of ways, and the board is in the process of discussing those ways. We could speed up the commentary that the auctioneer gives about each plant, but we certainly don't want to trim it too much, as it's a great opportunity to educate members about specific plants. We could also suggest that sellers not bring large numbers of individual types of plants, unless they're sure that the demand is there for a plant. Personally, I like to give away bags full of plants, verses 2-3 bags of less plants, but I realize that could cut into the income of the sellers. Additionally, we certainly don't want to ban any easy-to-grow plants, but I'd ask sellers to consider that if certain plants are not selling at previous auctions, maybe to stop bringing them for a few months, to build up the demand for them again.
All of that said, if we move to larger meeting place for some of our meetings, it will give us the opportunity to play with various things, the auction included. Perhaps we should go to the cash system that CCA uses where cash is collected immediately from the winning bidder, which allows buyers to leave when they please, without interrupting the auction process.
What are everyone thoughts to some of these ideas?
PVAS already uses the cash immediately part at their monthly meetings.
I do agree that a few stems in 50 bags is definetely adding to the length of the auction, but at the same time, sometimes that is all someone wants or needs, I have gotten a few bags where I ended up floating the stems until they were goo because I didnt have space. Then again, I could have bought a smaller bag.
The other Jeff
Master of growing algae and getting better at plants
I know I have only been to one meeting so far... and that was BEFORE I became a member... but I will say, the information sheet about the plant seems like a very good idea to me.
sorry, I commented before reading the rest of this. I apologize for getting into this, and exactly being the most active member... I hope that does not ruffle any feathers. that said, I like the way it was done. at the one I was at, and the partial one I saw, before I had to quickly leave, the auctioneer was very informative as far as light requirements... which is always important to me, because I have really low light... and such. but obviously, being at various people's homes, I can see the issue involved with trying to spread things out like that.
I like the idea of preorganization. Perhaps the plants could be put in categories such as 'low light', medium light' and high light w/ C02. Or foreground, midground or background.
When I was in Atlanta, the club there required that each member log in their items into the computer and then label their bag with the corresponding number, their name and species/plant name.
Just tossing in a thought.
Francine Once you go Dutch you can't stop trimming.
