What's up with the auctions recently?
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Ben Belton
- Posts: 633
- Joined: Fri Feb 06, 2004 12:21 am
- Location: Mayberry, NC
- Contact:
)I'm going to be completely up front and honest in my reply to the plant swap.
This is my opinion only, not Board's or anything.
I am not a fan. I can see too much of a 10% of the people always giving and never taking, in particular of those rare plants that only 10% are willing to pay for in the beginning to propogate.
I think a swap has a potential for items maybe not coming to the meetings that now do, and I also think it has a lot more potential to create hurt feelings and bad blood over the inevitable "I saw it first" cattle call to paw through a table of bags.
This is my opinion only, not Board's or anything.
I am not a fan. I can see too much of a 10% of the people always giving and never taking, in particular of those rare plants that only 10% are willing to pay for in the beginning to propogate.
I think a swap has a potential for items maybe not coming to the meetings that now do, and I also think it has a lot more potential to create hurt feelings and bad blood over the inevitable "I saw it first" cattle call to paw through a table of bags.
Dave
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ddavila06
- GWAPA Member
- Posts: 1593
- Joined: Wed Aug 27, 2008 12:50 pm
- Real Name: Damian Davila
- Location: Burke, Va
in my opinion a straight forward swap could work if the members give the easy plants only and hence the auction would only have rarer more interesting stuff and hopefully last less...but in the other hand, if we all dump the unwanted to the swap section, most "donations" would probably end up there and less money would be collected by the club...
Damian Davila
"Fishes-up, chill, Plants too"
"so many plants, so little space!"
"Fishes-up, chill, Plants too"
"so many plants, so little space!"
I like the auction just as they are too, but I do recall a few times where they seemed to go a little too long. I think we should try to keep it to about two hours or less.
So here's another suggestion:
We could place a per person limit in situations only where the total items in the auction exceeds a maximum amount, say 120. In those situations, we enforce a per person limit as follows: If the auctioneer picks up a bag from someone who has already sold their limit, that bag is set aside. If time remains at the end, then the surplus items can be auctioned. Here's the key, it would require Kris to keep track of how many bags each individual has sold during the auction.
So here's another suggestion:
We could place a per person limit in situations only where the total items in the auction exceeds a maximum amount, say 120. In those situations, we enforce a per person limit as follows: If the auctioneer picks up a bag from someone who has already sold their limit, that bag is set aside. If time remains at the end, then the surplus items can be auctioned. Here's the key, it would require Kris to keep track of how many bags each individual has sold during the auction.
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chris_todd
- Posts: 1118
- Joined: Fri Oct 03, 2008 11:05 pm
- Location: Catonsville
Maybe I misunderstood, Dave, but I was under the impression Aaron was suggesting we do *both* a swap and an auction?ingg wrote:I am not a fan. I can see too much of a 10% of the people always giving and never taking, in particular of those rare plants that only 10% are willing to pay for in the beginning to propogate.
I think a swap has a potential for items maybe not coming to the meetings that now do, and I also think it has a lot more potential to create hurt feelings and bad blood over the inevitable "I saw it first" cattle call to paw through a table of bags.
I was thinking the swap would be for the more common plants that are most likely to go for $1 in the auction - why bother trying to sell something that will likely only get a dollar - put it in the swap instead, and see if that month's grab bag has something you'd be interested in? You put one bag in the swap, you get to take out one bag. Put in two, take out two, etc. (I might keep the one bag per species rule there, though - five bags of the same thing should not entitle you to pick five bags of something else). I think the honor system goes a long way here, and I have no doubt everyone in the club would behave honorably. We're a very small group, everyone knows everyone. And you could randomize it by having everyone who puts in a bag draw a number that dictates in what order people get to make withdrawals from the swap pool.
Stuff that's rare, or valuable, or slow to propagate, goes in the auction, where it's value is more fairly determined. We cut the number of auction items down, everyone still has plenty of chances to get stuff they want, and many of the more common or easy plants actually get cheaper.
We could also just encourage people to make side deals via the forum, so fewer bags go into the auction, but people still end up getting a little dough for their plants. Of course, then the club loses on the auction revenue, but that may not be all that big a deal, I don't know.
I realize I started this thread, and may have kicked a bees nest that was otherwise not bothering anyone, so I apologize if I'm just making life difficult for the officers. I actually like the auctions just the way they are, though I'm open to new ideas as well.
I don't understand how the swap work work. How would plants be classified? And who would classify them? Sometimes the most common plants are also the most sought after. Crypts are a good example. Would they be put into the swap? I think I have to agree with Dave'e point earlier. Its too subjective and might be seen as unfair by some people.
I say we keep it simple. All that's necessary are a few minor adjustments to help limit the time of the auctions.
I say we keep it simple. All that's necessary are a few minor adjustments to help limit the time of the auctions.
One problem with that thinking is you never know what is sought after and what isn't. Or who may be looking for what in a given month.
How do you deal with prospective/new members if I may ask, they get to just stand and stare at the pile of bags on a swap table? Those are usually the ones who benefit most from the common plants, as we all know. So much for bag in bag out, eh? Back to the cattle call and potential hurt feelings?
We're not a small group, by the way.
Heck, last meeting was the smallest I can recall in almost 2 years, and there were still two people there I've never met or even spoken to (and couldn't get to, instead chasing my kids around). Both times I've hosted meetings I had total strangers in my home.
It is a bigger venue than maybe it seems sometimes.
(Want you to know - I did start noodling through the "box of plants" type scenario with the board. I was all gung ho. Had a plan! A simple story stopped me in my tracks.
A person, a long time ago, brought a big bucket of plants to a meeting, and suggested folks just help themselves. After some good natured arguments about who was taking what, guess what happened? People asked that the bags be placed in an auction format to decide who got what. And that was in the days where they actually did have a small and tight knit group at meetings.
That effectively killed going down the path in my head - I'd rather auction off the twenty seven millionth bag of Repens in GWAPA history rather than potentially make bad feelings between memebers over who got where first or wanted what "more".)
How do you deal with prospective/new members if I may ask, they get to just stand and stare at the pile of bags on a swap table? Those are usually the ones who benefit most from the common plants, as we all know. So much for bag in bag out, eh? Back to the cattle call and potential hurt feelings?
We're not a small group, by the way.
Heck, last meeting was the smallest I can recall in almost 2 years, and there were still two people there I've never met or even spoken to (and couldn't get to, instead chasing my kids around). Both times I've hosted meetings I had total strangers in my home. It is a bigger venue than maybe it seems sometimes.
(Want you to know - I did start noodling through the "box of plants" type scenario with the board. I was all gung ho. Had a plan! A simple story stopped me in my tracks.
A person, a long time ago, brought a big bucket of plants to a meeting, and suggested folks just help themselves. After some good natured arguments about who was taking what, guess what happened? People asked that the bags be placed in an auction format to decide who got what. And that was in the days where they actually did have a small and tight knit group at meetings.
That effectively killed going down the path in my head - I'd rather auction off the twenty seven millionth bag of Repens in GWAPA history rather than potentially make bad feelings between memebers over who got where first or wanted what "more".)
Dave
