As the new guy on the ASSRA BOD, I have been tasked with doing something with the “annual auction”.   
   
  As some of you may recall  ASSRA used to hold an auction of donated items as a fundraiser at the Spring annual meeting.
   I can remember in my early years as a member and attendee that there was a fair amount of “stuff” that was donated and auctioned.   I don’t know how much was really raised but it was a heck of a lot of fun.
   Some of the items were really good; I recall a number of autographed, collector-grade single shot oriented books, beautifully crafted one-of-a kind bench tools and equipment, unneeded gun parts and reloading stuff, all sorts of things.   At each event people would drop off stuff they no longer needed, others would send items to be added to the auction inventory.  In some cases I believe that the odds and ends left from a couple members estate sales were donated.

Of late the auction seems to have slipped through the cracks. we'd like to reevaluate it with your help.

Perhaps costs have gone up and folk can’t donate stuff that they can sell on flea-bay or on a table at a match.  Maybe it’s just the changing economy. Maybe its something else entirely.   

There have been a couple suggestions offered so far.

One would be to opening it up via the website by listing what has been donated and allowing emailed in bids in some way so that those of you who cannot attend have an equal access.   Obviously this will take some advance planning and maybe having it every few years rather than annually.
The idea of developing some way to use the auction to help our spouses and families dispose of our “stuff” after we have left the range has come up. The idea being to benefit both the survivors and the association.
Another is "just fuggidaboutit”.

I’m interested in ideas and constructive criticism (I really don’t want it to become a bash-assra thread) please feel free to post comments and ideas or you can PM me if you prefer.