We just had our auction as well and I have mentioned numerous times to the chairperson that we need to debrief. As of yet, nothing has been planned.
If there were subcommittees that dropped the ball, then tension is unavoidable. Just do your best to keep the name calling to a minimum. Women need to vent, that is just the nature of the beast.
I would give each subcommittee a list of different criteria that they should stick to. Basically they should all answer the same questions:
What went right, what went wrong. Why did it go wrong and how can it be made better next year.
Ask each person to brainstorm. Ask each subcommittee to ask their friends who attended what their feedback was. Sometimes the thing that seems monumental to those involved is barely noticed by attendees. Vice versa as well.
What is also critical is that detailed minutes be taken so nothing is lost. Keep them in a safe place for next years event.
Can you get a flip chart on an easel for your meeting? As each subcommittee chair reviews her successes and suggestions, the scribe (which should be someone other than the moderator - how about you??) lists the points on the flip chart. This takes the group's eyes off each other or the speaker and gives everyone a neutral place to look. The stress might be aleviated somewhat, plus you'll have a great list of points to document into a clean report after the meeting. If you go first with your report, you'll set the bar high for the others to follow.
You are right about the importance of debriefing quickly. A few days can do wonders in soothing some of the tension your committee felt in putting on this complex event. Hopefully by the time you meet, things will seem less emotional and you can have a productive meeting.
As with anything you do for the first time it is always a live and learn experience as to what worked and what didn't and how to improve it. It is too bad you main chairperson is so disagreeable to helping you through this process.
The simplest form of questioning would be what worked well? What did not work well? and suggestion to improve on what did not work well?
Many of us here have been running successful auctions/tricky tray's for years. At the end of the day you can always post specific questions here on these boards and let the folks tell you how they do it and what works best.
We just had a relatively successful fundraiser (auction) and are going to have a follow-up meeting soon to discuss how it went. There were many things that could have been better/easier/less stressful that we will need to talk about while it's all fresh.
The auction chair has reluctantly put together an agenda for the follow-up (which she didn't want to have/attend), but it's very very vague, just asking each committee chair to give their feedback without asking any specific questions.
Does anyone have a follow-up agenda or recommendations for guidelines on what the right questions to ask would be? And how to get feedback without encouraging nastiness (because a lot of the stress can be traced back to certain people who dropped the ball)?
I might run for chair for next year, so this is important to me. This is the best opportunity to get ideas for next year and I want to go smoothly, even though it's not my place to be the moderator of this meeting...
