TV Auction 2013

Rotary Club of North Scarborough
Rota-Teller

 November 27, 2013

Attendance: 13 (no guests)

Anthem: Barry Smith

Grace: Arthur Retnakaran

Announcements:

Al Meredith is still collecting from members for the annual Club Christmas Card, the proceeds from which will be applied towards buying school desks through the Laos project.

Dhanni announced that we have received a $2,000 cheque from the Markham Sunrise Rotary Club towards our joint Uganda project. Dhanni also announced that the Club will be sending a Shelterbox to the Philippines.

Marbelous Draw was won, and lost, by Jack Holman.

Sgt-at-Arms Al Meredith levied some fines and asked for Happy Bucks:

All who aren’t traveling to Hawaii were fined for some inexplicable reason.

All those not wearing badges were fined.

Happy bucks were contributed by Jack Holman and Kevin Manuel.

Gerd contributed a happy buck, since his wife had left him... temporarily... and so he and his dog drove around Lake Erie one day just for kicks. Apparently, the dog didn’t share the driving duties with Gerd.

Basil won the $48.50 lucky draw at the Agincourt Rotary Club, so contributed a portion of his winnings.

Program:

President Rocco introduced Kevin Manuel to talk about the TV Auction.

Most of the work has now been completed on the auction and preliminary figures are available.

The TV Auction proceeds (not counting sponsorships) was about $96,000. This was up 17% from 2012's $82,000.

The recovery was 60% of retail value, the same as last year despite the inclusion of lots of hockey tickets, which is surprising.

Our Club’s portion is 19.7%, which put us in third place amongst the contributing Rotary clubs.

The Auction expenses were about $12,000.

So, our share of the proceeds will be about $16,500 plus our sponsorships.

Kevin wants any comments that members may have about the auction and how it can be improved, so that he can present these suggestions at the post mortem meeting in Jan/Feb. 2014.

The TV Auction warehouse is now gone, and we are looking for a new warehouse location for next year. Until then, the auction supplies will be stored in our Club’s storage facilities.

The lawn signs are generic, so they should be returned, or stored, for next year’s auction.

Kevin reminded members who have incurred auction-related expenses to bring them forward for reimbursement.

Cheques will be distributed to the participating Rotary clubs at the TV Auction Committee’s Post Mortem Meeting in Jan./Feb.

Next year, the volunteer list will be more extensive. In addition, a new Auction Chair and Chef will be required for next year.

The TV Auction Committee will be set up as a separate entity with its own bank account, credit card accounts, etc., since for the first three years of the combined auction, we were piggybacking on the East York Rotary Club’s bank account, etc. The Committee is now satisfied that the combined auction is working, and therefore should be set up as a separate entity.

Kevin thanked club members for their support of the auction, specifically Basil, Jacob, Charles, and Carolyn who had the most items with 43, which made her the 3^rd largest contributor overall.

There was a lot of Internet interest which even overloaded our server on the Friday night. Hopefully, Rogers will continue this live video streaming for next year’s auction.

Kevin’s talk elicited many questions and comments. Amongst them, Frank Allison commented on the diminishing returns, and stressed that our club has to look at ways to increase our fund-raising efforts.

With respect to a question about ‘thank you’ letters, Kevin advised that each club sends out their own ‘thank you’ letters to their donors as there is no central database for this purpose. Auction Chairman Jacob will be looking after this task.

President Rocco thanked Kevin for all of his hard work on the TV Auction as well as for a very informative auction report.

Meeting was terminated