Our bid rules usually include:
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• Write bid on bid sheet in front of each item</font>
• Bids must be in $1 increments</font>
• Write current bid on next available blank line</font>
• All bids must be made by adults</font>
• Must be present at auction closing to win</font>
• Bidding closes at ______</font>
• Winners announced at ______ from Cafeteria Stage</font>

KLH - On ours, we usually list the minimum bid on the first line and the rules state the bid increments. Then people fill in the bids after that first line.

Yes, since we print it on the computer, it's a single piece of paper.

Can someone please post their auction and bidding rules.

Thanks,
Holly

When making out your bid sheets do you write the money amounts down on each line, or do you just put the first bid down and let the bidders fill in the increments? I hope that made sense.

Also, last year we used this as a three part form. Do you juse use a single sheet? I am guessing that to print it off you are using the one sheet.

Thanks for all the wonderful info. I really enjoy this forum.

K

Thank you so much for the email and all the advice! It was VERY helpful. With us being a suburb of Las Vegas, there are a lot of shows and restaurants to solicit donations from so I'm hoping we have a good turn out. I need to make sure I promote it well so the folks will show up with money!!

Holly

I'll see if I can dig one up for you. But they are really easy to make.

If it's a typical silent auction you will have tables lined up with items. Crowds (hopefully!) of people will be making their way past the table, skimming the bid sheets and displays for items of interest. It really helps to think about how to format the bid sheet.

Here are a few tips...

Make the item name the meaningful and the biggest, most eye catching piece of information.

A common mistake I see is that the organizers design an initial template and their focus is on event name, so it's big and bold at the top. That immediately catches the eye and then bidders have to search for item name. Make it easy.

If at all possible print the bid sheets from a computer.
You may be forced to handwrite some last minute donations, but try to computer print as much as possible. And if you must write, use basic legible printing, not cursive.

Keep descriptions brief, but clear
The title may cover it, but otherwise be sure to include any key info in the description. I attend one (non-school) event where many of the items are hotel stays. But sometimes they don't show on the bid sheet the city or whether it's one or two nights. It's really frustrating because each bidder spends three-times as long trying to read the voucher copy and figure it out, holding up the line.

If you are making a lot of bid sheets, you may want to merge in the information rather than type each one.
It's not that hard to set up a format and then type the details of each page. But we find it even more efficient to set up a spread sheet the basic info and merge that into a Word template. The spreadsheet has columns like Item Name, Item Number, Description, Donor, Value, Starting Bid, etc. You can then merge this info into a template set up in Word, do a little final tweaking and print all of it out in minutes! If you aren't comfortable using the merge function yourself, check with your other volunteers. It's not hard.

Then you can continue to use your initial spreadsheet to record other information like how much the item sold for, full contact info for the donor, and anything else you need.

Good Luck!

[ 01-04-2005, 03:55 PM: Message edited by: JHB ]