Don't Forget The News Hounds Holiday Auction
Reported by Ellen - November 28, 2010 -
Whether you can donate an item or are shopping for the holidays, our News Hounds holiday auction is an opportunity to get in touch with your creative muse and/or shop for the holidays AND help the News Hounds at the same time. You can view the items received so far here. Full details after the jump.
ET wrote in her post on our forum,
Since most of the Forum regulars are on Facebook now, instead of running the auction through a fee-based mechanism like eBay, we'll handle it informally through a FB Photo Album! I'll build the album on my FB page and make it accessible to more than "Friends Only" for viewing so it can be broadly shared. (I'd build it on the Group page, but albums don't seem to be permitted there, which is weird.) Each item up for auction will have one photo, and bids will be accepted in comments on that photo until the closing date.
Not in the NH Facebook group? View the album here on Photobucket:
Send any non-Facebook bids to ET's Private Messaging on the Forum, for proxy-posting. She'll keep the Forum up-to-date on where bids on each item stand.
When the auction closes, ET will play clearinghouse, individually messaging the winning bidders to let them know the amount they need to donate to NH (through the existing PayPal donation mechanism on News Hounds). She'll also ask for their shipping information to pass on to the artist. If anyone prefers to omit the middleman, that's cool - she'll point that person directly to the artist for the info exchange. It's an honor system. But we don't think any winning bidder who stiffs the Hounds will want to own the reputation that would ensue...
The artist will then ship the item to the winning bidder. Holiday cheer, shared talents, support for the Hounds: everyone wins!
Contributing Artists: ET needs from you as soon as possible a photo(s) of your contributed item(s), whatever description(s) you'd like included as the caption, and, if applicable, recommended or required starting bid(s). (If you think that shipping will be fragile, complicated or expensive, you may want to cover those anticipated out-of-pocket costs with a required minimum bid.)
The auction has started and has a closing date of 11:59 PM (Pacific) on Monday, December 13, so there's enough time to ship for holiday arrivals but still avoid crazy-making long lines at the post office or UPS. Items can be added at any time...but, of course, the longer the bid time, the higher the potential final bid, so speed is appreciated.
Please consider participating! Apart from the good cause, it's tremendous fun to create a new level of connection with a friend you may only have "met" through words on the screen. All contributions are welcome - doesn't matter if it's handicrafts or fine art, or maybe a recorded performance or some kind of freebie service. Past offerings have included holiday decor, jewelry, photography and much, much more. If it's something you'd like, chances are that one of your blogfriends will, too, so don't be shy!
And, if you can't contribute to the auction in the short term, please consider sending ET a couple of favorite recipes for the News Hounds cookbook I've had on the back burner (groan!) for a while now. I doubt it will be ready by auction-time, but when done it can sit in the Hounds' CafePress store as an ongoing fundraising item.
ET posted her first donation item. Let the bidding commence!
Thanks so much ET and the rest of our NH's community!
