We are excited to begin planning East Shore’s annual auction again. The East Shore Auction, usually held in November each year, is a big fund-raising opportunity for the church, and a wonderful way to build community, since the auction is all about offering social events and services to each other.
This year, the date will be Saturday, November 5. Put the date in your calendars now!
We have already chosen a theme, Embracing the Future, and our amazing graphic designer, Wenda Collins, is hard at work coming up with some wonderful graphics for the website and communications.
18-month Auction
This year’s auction will be unique since it will be an 18-month auction. Since we voted to shift the church’s financial year to a calendar year, it is necessary to move around our big fund raising events. The Mission Fund Drive will be moving to the Fall, and the Auction to the Spring. This means that after this year’s auction, we will not have another auction until the Spring of 2024. So we need to make this year’s auction an extra-special 18-month auction.
This means that we’ll be asking for more contributions. If you typically offer an item or event around the holidays or in the early Spring, please consider offering two this year – one for 2022/23 and one for 2023/24. We will split the Silent Auction portion into sections, so that it’s clear which year the item you’re bidding on will be for. Of course you can offer two of any item, not just those that are date specific!
Fund a Need project
One aspect of the auction that always raises a lot of money is the Fund a Need project. This year, we’re looking to identify a community project that will inspire members to share their time and talents as well as their treasure (money)! We will need someone to spearhead this project and make a proposal in August, so please start talking to external organizations, if you have connections and ideas.
Volunteering
Our team, Rachel Herbert, Mike Stunes, Jim Shuman, Beth Wilson, Bob Weiss and myself, have been running the auction (with the assistance of others) for 3 years now, and we would love to have some fresh faces bring in new ideas to help run it, and to learn the ropes for future auctions. We meet via zoom on the 2nd Tuesdays of the month.
The roles that we currently fill and would like assistance with are:
- Chair and communications – Amanda Strombom
- Webmaster – Mike Stunes
- Catalog coordinator – Rachel Herbert
- Training, tech support and finances – Jim Shuman
- Auction expert – Beth Wilson
- Catering coordinators – Bob Weiss and Steve Denison
- Master of Ceremonies – Craig Nelsen
We also need people to help with contacting members to gather their contributions. This role is split out between several people. Assuming we can have an in-person event this year, we will need a volunteer coordinator and lots of volunteers for the day of the auction.
Please let me know if you’re interested in helping run the auction this year, in any capacity.
We’re looking forward to holding another fabulous auction!
by Amanda Strombom, Auction Team Chair