Coral Donations for Auctions

[ecoreefguy]

I think for next year before the end of the year, during one of the big meets, club should ask for donation corals from members and users. Have an auction and donate the proceeds at years end. Will give people a chance to both help out and get some coral. I remember we did this a long time ago. Was cool to see what people donate and have.

 

[chemaholic]

I think this is a nice idea. Auctions are a blast too. I would definitely donate some frags to this. If we do it near the end of the year we could donate the proceeds to Toys for Tots or something similar. Call it Corals for Kids or something like that.

 

[ichthyoid]

I think you guys have great ideas!
I would encourage you both to step up & make it happen.
Thank you!

 

[ecoreefguy]

I think you guys have great ideas!
I would encourage you both to step up & make it happen.
Thank you!

I’m not part of the board or any committee. Chem will have the be the one in charge

 

[ichthyoid]

I’m not part of the board or any committee. Chem will have the be the one in charge

You guys can run with it.
We are all volunteers. We trust you.
If we want a committee, then here, poof!
What would you like it to be called…? _____
See, that was easy
We have a board because, well, someone needs to be in charge…
If you have any questions just ask?
If you need anything else, just ask?

 

[jcook54]

I'll allow it. See @ecoreefguy it's done! I've got the fancy badge and everything. Seriously though, you're part of this community and I think it's a great idea. We're all volunteers just trying to keep this whole ARC thing moving forward from year-to-year.

 

[ichthyoid]

Yeaaa!!

 

[chemaholic]

May I have a badge?

Also @ecoreefguy I am happy to help you do this event when the time comes. Just let me know.

 

[Adam]

May I have a badge?

You have 2

I love this idea. During this years talks about the trust donation It was brought to my attention, by a past officer, that there's nothing that states we have to donate within the hobby. Just that's its to a true nonprofit. Well, I brought it up to the rest of the board pretty late in the game and it didn't work out.

Even if next years talks don't yield that result, maybe through something like this we could raise money for St Jude or the Make a Wish Foundation. We could try and see if any sponsors are interested in a matching donation or a set amount.

My recent health issues have changed my perspective on a few things. It would be pretty cool if we could do something nice within our local Atlanta community.

 

[ecoreefguy]

I would, but I think my personality has little to no censor or filters. I’ll hear a bid for 1.00 and somehow all my internal dialog of “ you cheap asshole” would come out especially if it was for charity

 

[Adam]

I would, but I think my personality has little to no censor or filters. I’ll hear a bid for 1.00 and somehow all my internal dialog of “ you cheap asshole” would come out especially if it was for charity

You need a place to vent. We have a bat channel, we let it all out there so we can be professional and put the proper face on here.

If you really want to get involved somehow this is a great place to start.

 

[ichthyoid]

Focus that energy.
It’s a win-win!

 

[chemaholic]

I have no problem MCing the event.

I would start everything at $10 minimum for regular stuff and higher for super nice stuff. We want people to feel like they got a good deal but we need to make some money for the charity too obviously. Even if it is a real common coral I imagine most of us can come off a ten spot to help out. I imagine it would not be hard to get donations from LFS's and coral vendors in exchange for putting up some advertising for them at the event and announcing them when their coral comes up for bid.

I am with you there Adam. I had something similar happen to me. It changes your perspective on many things.

 

[Reefplumber13]

I'm sure this is something that could happen all that would need to happen is a post be made asking for donations and someone to collect them or keep a list of who is donating what. We could do it in the auction fourm. Just to see how it would go

 

[ichthyoid]

“I am with you there Adam. I had something similar happen to me. It changes your perspective on many things.”

+1
14 years next month

 

[ecoreefguy]

Ok I’ll bite. Here’s what I will need from ya.

Permission to host these auctions ( I believe this was given)
A centralized payment account that can be used. Donators and contributors won’t need any log in information. Just as long as someone is able to see if payment was made before pick up. This way the auctions can be held remotely without being necessarily having to bring it to one location in between meets, unless BOD wants monthly meets. I know I have lot of frags I throw out or give away. I would rather sell cheap and have it go to a cause.

Permission to use the auction part of the page to host said auctions. Name of auction should include “Charity Auction” in name. Maximum minimal should be set low. Like 20-25 for anything regardless of actual value.

IE “Charity Auction - Dragonsoul Torch” starting bid 25.00

Pick a charity with a goal, like 1000 or whatever. Once that hits, make a check donate and move to the next charity. I would love to see it being spread throughout the community all through out the year rather than just 1 season. Let me know what ya think and I can present a proposal.

 

[chemaholic]

I like the idea of an online auction which we should definitely do, but I would still want to try to do an in person auction at some point next year. Having people there in person makes things very exciting for the bidders and the people watching. This is one reason why I love going to auctions. The thrill. We can do it as part of a frag show. Basically we do a show like the one in Atlanta recently which was a blast and in addition to vendors and a raffle we also do a charity coral auction. The corals to be auctioned can be donated by members and/or vendors and sponsors. I think it would be a cool way to close out the show. I am willing to help put this together.

As eco said, we would need to have a Paypal/Venmo/Whatever account setup to take electronic charity auction payments. We could also take cash of course. We would need to be able to print out numbers to assign to bidders who will have to sign up and provide their name, address, and phone number to participate. Beyond that we would just need a couple of people to handle sign ups, payments, tracking the winning bids, and bagging up the corals for the person who picks them up. We would need to label each coral frag with a unique ID and record that, who donated it if they want us to say, and a suggested starting bid based on the value of the coral. Type this all up in a list for the MC and the person tracking the winning bids. I am probably leaving some stuff out but I think this is most of the important stuff.

 

[ichthyoid]

Gents, we will discuss this this and get back.
Depends on everyone’s availability, it varies.

Thank you!

 

[chemaholic]

Ok I’ll bite. Here’s what I will need from ya.

Permission to host these auctions ( I believe this was given)
A centralized payment account that can be used. Donators and contributors won’t need any log in information. Just as long as someone is able to see if payment was made before pick up. This way the auctions can be held remotely without being necessarily having to bring it to one location in between meets, unless BOD wants monthly meets. I know I have lot of frags I throw out or give away. I would rather sell cheap and have it go to a cause.

Permission to use the auction part of the page to host said auctions. Name of auction should include “Charity Auction” in name. Maximum minimal should be set low. Like 20-25 for anything regardless of actual value.

IE “Charity Auction - Dragonsoul Torch” starting bid 25.00

Pick a charity with a goal, like 1000 or whatever. Once that hits, make a check donate and move to the next charity. I would love to see it being spread throughout the community all through out the year rather than just 1 season. Let me know what ya think and I can present a proposal.

I definitely like this idea. Online auctions are much easier to manage than an in person event so we can do them on a monthly, weekly, or whatever basis we like.

I would suggest we create a separate forum for charity auctions just to keep things orderly and to make it easy to find the items that are in the charity auction.

We might want to have the person creating the auction thread include roughly where the coral is located. It would be a bummer to win a coral and then find out I have to drive two hours to pick it up.

I am happy to help with this as well if help is needed.

 

[Keevin]