We FINALLY have our Silent Auction Article folks! Read On!!
“SILENT AUCTION” - ibu’s first silent auction fund raiser for Agathians Shelter for boys.
(Actually it wasn’t so silent. The last few minutes saw 3 people starting an all out price bidding war on a Persian carpet with paper snatching and strong tones of ‘put that paper down madam, I’ve yet to re-bid!’)
Sorry – maybe I should start at the beginning – 24/25 November 2007 saw ibu holding its very first Silent Auction & Kids Bazaar Fund Raiser. For those of you blissfully unaware of our numerous email & SMS reminders, the auction was held at Bangsar Shopping Centre (BSC for you newbies) with 100% of profits going to Agathians. Now, how does a charity like ibu, organize a charity event for someone else you may ask? Well, with great difficulty. In essence an opportunity came about which was too good to pass up - BSC offered us the space for free and we still had Melissa’s voice in our heads (ex-chairperson, bless her heart), asking us (the charity team) what our big event for the year was going to be… so with motivation and a keenness to help others we plunged in and trusted to the guy above.
What is a silent auction? Basically its just like a normal auction in that there are items to bid on – the only difference lies in that the bidding was on sheets of paper that was laid out on the tables, near the bid items. This way people could come back at the end of the 2 days and see if they still had the highest bid or whether they should re-bid.
Besides the silent auction of the many, many items we had donated by generous sponsors, we also organized a kids bazaar (free angel making, nominal fee for cupcake decorating and RM30 for batik painting) and lucky draw. Naturally the angel making was a big hit, the cupcakes earned RM2,452, the batik earned RM350, generously donated by Craft Complex - RM10 per piece of batik made. (for some reason the batik wasn’t popular, though we thought it’d be our best seller. It’s a puzzler.) The 2 days saw 235 tickets sold.
At final count, we had these figures:
Silent Auction RM36,506
Private & Corporate Donations RM14,225
Periphery activities (tickets, cupcakes, etc) RM8,652
TOTAL RM59,383
(expenses – mostly subsidized by Mel Smith) RM2,242
PROFIT TO AGATHIANS RM57,141
As mentioned 100% of profits went to Agathians Shelter towards building their new home in Petaling Jaya – currently they live in 2 very small single-story link houses that is home to some 30-40 boys from age 3-16 years. With this new home, they will be housed in a bungalow with actual grass around the house and hopefully a double story level soon. For more information visit www.Agathians.org
A months of stress, some tears, some laughter and a few new friendships later, and it was all over! Phew. We’re not entirely sure that we’d do it again or if its viable for an entity such as ours to tackle fund raising for other charities, but at the end of the day we had fun, raised heaps of money and almost reached our target of RM60,000!
It was a mammoth effort and there are so many people to thank, so please bear with me:
• The 80+ sponsors & vendors who generously donated time, money and/or space – A Cut Above, Alex Yoong, Amita Pearls, Asian Tiger Transpo, Baby Loft, Bangsar Shopping Centre, Belle Baby, Berjaya Air, Blessings Bed & Breakfast, Bisou, Borneo Pop (Jonas Jodie), Buds, Carcosa, Celebrity Fitness, Cold Storage, Celia Yap, Charita, Chateau De Sable, Cheras Driving Range, Craft Complex, Deok Sun, Dr Yee, D'Showcase, Dodo Art, Ebeza, Expedite Printing, FA'IQ Jewels, Fogal Meat Market, Fit For 2, 90’s Go Lights Temptation, Glaxo Smith Kline, Gymboree, Grace Salon, Grand Continental Hotel, Hadar Gifts, HerbaLife, House & Co, Gudang Damansara, Judy Yap, K.M. Oli Mohamed, Khaana Peena, Kid Sports, Kidscool, Lords Tailor, Leighton Construction, Lazat Cooking School, Mines Watersports, Montes, Mad Science, Mattel, Maxnetic, Nando's, Nestle, Numpueng Art, Out of Africa, Pantai Hospital, Persian Collections, Pet Epicure, Planet Art, Raffles Furnishing, Sew & Soul, Starwright Graphic, Suzie&Russel Palmer, Sprintserve, Sparkles Jewellers, SMACC, The Bridge International church, The Attic, TNT Kickboxing, True Life Art, TwentyOne Restaurant & Bar, Victoria Music, X1R, Yee Wah Hing's Watch, York House, Zazi Art, Zurich Timepieces
• The 80+ volunteers that were integral leading up to and on the days – Amanda & Michael Moggie, Amy Sholdl, Angela McKenzie, Angie Tan, Ann Gunapalan, Anne Tiernan, Asha Pollack, Beatrice Huang, Brian Fernandez, Chela Mega, Cheong Wai Quan, Chong Yee Li, Christina Rajaratnam, Clare Suanders-Tack, Cressa Chan, Diane Douglas, Emma Brant, Eunice Marie Song, Eveline Deutman, Fabienne & Elisabeth Rushworth, Francis, Gail McIntyre, Helen Garry, Ingrid van de Coevering, Jane Sullivan, Janice, Jenny, Jill North, Jo Yoong, Judy Yap, Julia Smith, Justine Goh, K Fuad, Lynn, Maureen Tong, Melissa Smith, Michele Sagan, Nikki D’Cruz, N. Wilson, Nor Azlina, Paige Head, Penny Dunn, Phyllis, Rachel, Rene Springall, Rita, Sarah, Sharon Tan, Shireen, Siew Teen, Sigrid Gauthay, Soraya Putra, Tee, Tammie Morris, Tasneem, Teresa Botner, Teresa James, Vanessa, Wai Fong, Wendy McLean, Will Stegall, Yasmin Panton, members of the committee and many many more.
• And also all the boys at Agathians Shelter for coming out and supporting us: Poobalan, Siddha, Buddha, Devan, Jaianand, Dhilip Kumar, Haran, Kesava, Shankar, Hari, Sunder, Shatiasilan, Yuvarajah, Amaran, Arunasalam, Jeevanathan, gunasegaran, Ezra, Bose Mani, Prem Kumar, Dinesh Kumar, Teenagaran, Meriyappa, Thevendran, Jaganathan, Loga Lingam
• And a special thanks to Brian, Viknesh, Simbu and Eswar for staying all day on both days and helping us!
• Much gratitude also to Siva and his helpers
And a special thanks to Melissa Smith for donating her time, generosity and patience, Paige Head for her selfless long nights, Allison for being our constant backbone, my husband Andrew for babysitting Tara every weekend and putting up with my not-so-niceness and Jenny Stegall for having the vision and heart to start it all.
Finally my humble apologies for any errors or omissions in this article. I’ve tried to include everything and everyone as I’ve remembered it, but as I still have pregnancy brain (from a year ago!) I may be a bit remiss.
Hope everyone had a merry merry Christmas and New Year and I look forward to seeing y’all at ibu!
Written By Charities Coordnator Phillipa Yoong-Bayly
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