RRC Archives

I know we have talked in the past about batchalour/belay slave auctions, and while I think it was a good idea, there was never a really good time to do it live and in person. What about an online auction? A day climbing with someone for bid. I would be willing to donate two days - for climbing/belaying, and for photos of the person and their group. And if it was an actual batchalour action, then I would be willing to prostitute myself out for a good cause, not that I would raise much money.

Maybe get a few other people to give a day or two, and maybe raise a little bit of money. If we could get 10 days volunteered, with maybe a reserve of 200 or so per day, that would be 2K pretty quick.

Thoughts?

I think it would be great fun! I'm sure a lot of people would volunteer.

Wonder if some old school people would come out ? That would be a huge draw.

Spraqwa, Insurance worries with this ?

does anyone have any old carabiners, camming devices, a nice black and white photo of a local climbing area, a piton off some big out west climb... or some gear (rope, boulderpad, etc.) that a local shop will donate ???

post it up on line and start the bidding at 30 percent of value... you can raise cash quickly.

Thanks Brad! I think that we should start an on-line auction with what we can pull together in the next few weeks - but I'm not a techno person and have no clue how we'd actually DO the online auction... i.e. on the RRGCC site? This site (which of course would have to be w/ Ray and Michelle's blessings...) - anyhow, the idea is good and since the sites are getting so many hits right now w/ the buzz that has been generated, we should take advantage.

Charlie - does the RRGCC have any items to offer for an auction? Ropes, etc. that are leftover swag from roctoberfest, etc?
Morgain - can we get some goods from local merchants/vendors - even a case of Red Bull from Mary, a Gift Certificate for a resturaunt, for a massage, etc.
RRO and others - any new gear to donate to an auction?

Brad's post makes it sound like we could generate some more $ - esp. from folks who may not be interested in just donating, but will get excited to win something...

So, let's talk more about this idea... and, of course if we can keep working on it and maybe get some BIG items to auction in the future - this would certainly keep people coming back to see what is up for auction...

Michelle, Charlie - what do y'all know about how we'd host an auction on a website? would it be really, really labor intensive for someone to monitor?

Thanks Guys - keep up the good work!
Diane

Not to answer for Charlie but the RRGCC does have some left over item. The last 2 events we have been a middle man for donations. Cant say for sure they will give them up for an auction but I would bet they will. I can try to contact some of the donors and see if they would be interested in donating some more stuff.

I know we can and will donate some new gear for an auction. Mark and Miguel can be hard to reach right now but if we see/talk to them we will ask.

Could we auction/sale small plaques for the area or local business ? Not sure of the investment but if a donor gives "x" they would get a small engraved plaque to be mounted in the SR or at Miguels/RRO.

The way I see it, an online gear auction would have to be an individual effort. for example, if you sell an old harness you have, you would have to be responsible for finding out shipping costs prior to the auction, boxing it up, and shipping it off to the winner.

I don't think it would be hard to have the auction in a thread but it would get confusing if more than one item was being auctioned off. I would say that we could tally a list of items with pictures (when available) and create a calendar as to their auction dates (so people could tune in when the item they want is up for auction). Then, one by one, we could auction the items off. The winner could pay via PayPal and I would take responsibility for mailing shipping reimbursement checks to individuals. Anyone with a better ideas as to how to handle this?

I'd be hesitant to auction off anything but used gear for this event. We have many more fundraising events coming soon and I'd like to reserve the new swag for those.

But we could also have a used gear sale at the big fundraiser I'm trying to coordinate with UK in Lexington (Feb/March). That could be fun for the students and bring some locals out of their holes.

Ray's going to look into an auction application for the site. Hopefully there's something cool (and easy) out there.

The biggest problem to me is shipping. Maybe the best idea is to get one person to gather all the items and be in charge of the shipping side of things. I have this cool packaging material called Make-A-Box that can be cut into any size cardboard sheet, wrapped around any item, sticks only to itself, and is relatively cheap.

And it would probably be best if the RRGCC cuts the shipping reimbursement checks. Charlie, is this something that you can do?

Shipping is expensive. But shouldn't be hard to calculate an average per item.
Maybe on items over a specific value do "free shipping"?

When I had to ship out the shirts after the JACD event it came to about 3.5 a shirt not including packaging. That was a fifth the price of the shirt.

I'll bring this up at the meeting tomorrow ...

--Do we have any gear on hand?
--How would we handle the shipping account?
--I don't have check writing abilities (otherwise I'd already be in Hueco ) but Ryan does.

I'll toss it out and see what everyone thinks tomorrow.