Status update on Auction activities - Procurement

The Auction committee has been busy already. We hope you'll consider getting involved in one of these ways, or looking for other ways to get involved through the roles and responsibilities document, found on the main Da Vinci Academy auction page on dvacademy.org.

Procurement
Procurement is our biggest to-do for the coming weeks. Auction items are procured through a combination of direct mail, face-to-face, and phone conversations with businesses both local and far afield. Every family can help with procurement by working within their own personal networks to find goods or services to donate. Have a family member with a vacation cottage who wouldn't mind donating a weekend or a week? Have seasons' tickets to a Chicago-area venue that you could spare a set of? How about the friend who works in the PR department for a sports team? Signed jerseys, tickets to sporting events, or special "behind the scenes" tours are big draws for the auction. Do you or someone in your social circle have an interesting job? Volunteer to take a small group of students through! One popular item from previous years' auctions is an insider tour of a firehouse, courtesy of an uncle of a Da Vinci student.

In addition to procuring through personal connections, we also solicit businesses by letter and in person. Please consider coming to an upcoming procurement meeting and/or getting in touch with Michelle Milo, Auction chair to get up to speed on what to do. Many volunteers find they can keep procurement letters with them in their car and bring them in on their everyday errands.

One benefit of this year's new Auction Blog is that it gives us another avenue to promote the businesses who donate goods or services to the auction. We will aim to list all businesses here as donations come in, and include links to business websites when available.

Additionally, we also sell advertising space in the auction catalog, which is given to all auction attendees. This can be another great way for local businesses to promote their brand.

Class Projects
Anita Swartwood will be coordinating the class projects for this year's auction. The class projects are a fun way for the kids to get involved with the event. Class projects from previous years have generated substantial funds for the school and include things such as a play tent, a hand-crafted chess set, large-scale collage and composite artwork, painted chairs, and many other wonderful pieces. Over the coming days and weeks we'll look to add photos of previous auction class projects so you can appreciate the scale and effort that goes into them, both on the part of the students and on the part of the volunteers who coordinate the work and the classroom teachers who help complete the projects.

Golden Ticket
This is a raffle of big-ticket items such as an iMac computer or flat-screen television. Tickets can be sold to friends and family, the winner does not need to be present at the auction to win (though we'd hope they'd consider attending!) In the coming week or two the items for the Golden Ticket raffle need to be finalized and purchased. We're still looking for committee members for the Golden Ticket committee. People who helped with it last year will be involved again to assist, but it'd be helpful to have another few volunteers.

Auctioneer
We are on the hunt for an auctioneer, the ones we have contacted thus far this year have previous engagements. If you know of anyone, please contact Michelle Milo or post a comment to this blog.