Life and Times

The Rotary TV Auction is staffed with volunteers. Even most of the Rogers TV staff are volunteers, there are the camera persons, production and someone maintaining the bid board on a laptop with video feed to the studio van. When you call in you get one of the ten people taking bids. The call bounces in priority with those at the front getting most of the calls. At the end of the block, usually all the callers are busy. The experienced bid takers will always let the phone ring a couple of times to make sure the caller ID comes in. That way they can confirm the number and name of the person. If they don’t match they are supposed to make sure there will be someone at the number given within the next hour for the callback if they win.

Once the bid form is completed, Air Cadet volunteers take them and put them up on the bid board; in order, by bid amount and by sequence they are received for duplicate bids. There were also some Scouts helping run the forms around and helping with the phones. The phone bid takers are watching the bid board for current bids. So when you call a bid in, there could be people still writing bids or posting them. At the end of the block, all the bids for the item are stapled together in the bid sequence. If a winning bidder cannot be contacted then the next highest bidder may get a call. These stacks of forms are taken upstairs by the Air Cadet volunteers to the call back room. The winners are called and entered into the auction database

Working the phones gives you a feel for who are bidding. There are some occasional bidders and there are those who are bidding on a lot of items. The ones that just rattle down the things you need on the bid are the regulars. Within the 15 minute block, the calls usually come in the first 5 minutes and then in the last 5 minutes. Those in the first 5 minutes like to set the base for the auction item. In some ways, they want to put the bid in and see how long it lasts on the TV. Those in the last 5 minutes want to win or make sure they win the item. I had one woman call and bid $7 for an item. When I hung up, she immediately called back and bid $8. I thought she had overbid herself but then I noticed the item on the board was already $7. She must have realized that I couldn’t have sent the form up to the board and that someone else had bid $7 before her. The bell rang while I was on the phone with her.

I had a split shift. I worked the phones from noon to 2. From 2-4 I had some of the food upstairs and talked with some of the other volunteers and saw some more of the data entry process. It also gave me a chance to bid on some items since they have a live video feed in the break room. Rajiv had this shift and he happened to answer the phone for one of my bids. From 4-6 was my second phone shift. By then I was used to the routine. If I got a bid during the 5 minutes in the middle of the block, I would decorate the bid amount with the marker. Usually, I’d put smiley faces in the zeroes. The first time I did it, it gave the air cadet manning the board a chuckle. I could also look up on the board and see which bids I took. Just something to do while we were waiting for phones to ring. I had fun working the auction and also getting to know the North Scarborough Club members a bit more. Now I look forward to next year.

Oh by the way, it looks like they will lose the anchor items of furnaces and air conditioners from Mersey. So now they are looking for other big draw items to go on the front of the flyer. Let the Rotary Club of North Scarborough know, if you know a company that might want this kind of exposure and is community minded.

http://www.agincourtrotary.com/forum/index.php?topic=388.0