Duane Hicks
Plans are well underway for the 31st-annual Kiwanis auction next month, which for a second year won’t take place on TV but be done entirely through the popular Internet auction site ebay.ca
Kiwanian Shanda DeGagné-Begin, who chairs the planning committee, said the club will be holding its auction completely online from May 2-8, and expects the fundraiser to be bigger than last year.
“We’ve put out all of the canvass, so most of the members have met with local businesses to see if they’re interested in participating this year,” she noted.
“We’re just starting to receive all of the items now and input them all into ebay.
“It’s kind of a slow process,” she admitted. “That’s why I give myself a few weeks’ leeway because otherwise I’d be stuck.”
DeGagné-Begin noted the Kiwanis Club is seeing generous support once again.
“We’ve had a really great response from businesses this year,” she enthused. “It’s nice to see them so positive about the switch to ebay, as well.
“We are really getting a great variety of items this year,” DeGagné-Begin added. “Like we have everything from batteries to clocks, a beautiful men’s watch, women’s sunglasses, men’s clothing, and patio furniture—a really diverse group of items.
“We’re really happy that it hits right before Mother’s Day [May 9], so we’re hoping somebody has a mother on their list—and Father’s Day isn’t too far after that,” she reasoned.
“We’re excited about this year.”
Anyone wanting to donate items to the auction can contact organizers via e-mail at kiwanis.auction@hotmail.com
The auction had been broadcast each spring on the local cable TV channel for years, but the Kiwanis decided to change formats last year and found it to have been very successful.
“We really had a great response,” DeGagné-Begin remarked. “You can track everything through marketing tools on ebay, and we had over 9,300 people hit our website during the week that we had items available.
“Over 1,000 bids were placed, and that was just on 82 items.
“We had a really small auction last year because it was a test run,” she noted.
Last year’s auction raised $4,400. While this wasn’t as much as in previous years, DeGagné-Begin said the profit margins were high on the limited number of items they did auction off.
One major advantage of using ebay.ca is there’s very little overhead to running the auction, she noted, and therefore fundraising profits are maximized.
“The costs of running the auction are almost nil—ebay credits us because we are a fundraising charity,” she explained. “They don’t charge us any fees for using ebay.”
Another advantage is that people will be able to bid on items regardless of whether or not they are Shaw subscribers. This includes residents from across Rainy River District, and perhaps even further afield.
“Our primary focus, of course, is to hit all of the people in the Rainy River District, so the majority of bidders came right from the Rainy River District,” DeGagné-Begin said.
“We actually got a lot of e-mails from people in Emo who were so excited that they could actually participate this year,” she recalled, adding two items were sent to successful bidders in Winnipeg and British Columbia last year.
“Primarily, everything stayed right in the district, which is what we want to do because we want to give the businesses good promotional value,” she reasoned.
Yet another advantage to the online auction is that potential bidders can access information on the auction items throughout the week, instead of just a few hours on a Saturday afternoon where one had to be watching the TV at the right time to bid on what they wanted.
The week-long exposure also is advantageous to businesses that donate auction items.
“It really gets the business information out the people for the entire week,” DeGagné-Begin stressed.
“Almost 10,000 unique ebay users hit the site last year, so that’s a lot of people looking when you consider the size of Fort Frances.”
How it works
Those who want to take part in the Kiwanis auction will need to go www.ebay.ca prior to the auction or the week of the auction, and if they’re not already an ebay user, register, DeGagné-Begin explained, adding they’ll have to enter an e-mail address and some other information.
The Kiwanis’ ebay store, which will include lists of all the items up for bid, will be located at http://stores.ebay.ca/kiwanisauction
Bidding will open May 2 and close on May 8.
“The one thing that has changed is last year the bidding ended at exactly the same time—5 p.m. on the Saturday night,” noted DeGagné-Begin.
“This year, we’re going to stagger the endings so they’ll have to go onto ebay to see when their auction ends.
“We’re going to try to stagger it throughout the day on [May 8] just because if we have five of the same gift certificate, if people miss out on winning one, they can go later in the day and try to win another one,” she remarked.
Auction winners will be able to pick up their item(s) at Lidkea Optometry Services during the week of May 10-14, or have it mailed to them if need be.
Bidders who win items can pay for them online using PayPal, or by cash or cheque when they pick them up at Lidkea Optometry Services.
“We want to make it as easy for people as we can,” DeGagné-Begin stressed.
All bidding will take place in Canadian dollars, with proceeds going towards local Kiwanis projects.
The club contributes to numerous causes, including Sunny Cove Camp, the Riverside Foundation for Health Care, district 4-H, “Fishing for Futures,” summer programs at the Fort Frances Public Library, high school bursaries, and high school and elementary school projects.
It also supports Northwestern Health Unit projects, the “Relay for Life,” “Meals on Wheels,” the Rainy River District Festival of the Performing Arts, Fort Frances “Community Chest,” and the Salvation Army’s Christmas kettle and “Adopt-a-Family” programs.
The auction is the club’s second-biggest fundraiser of the year behind its “Trip of the Month” draw.
Anyone with questions about the auction, or who are interested in becoming a Kiwanis member, can e-mail DeGagné-Begin at kiwanis.auction@hotmail.com
