From left: Chris Nash, Lisa Baxter, Diane Stevens, Connie Ewart and Nancy Bott in the back.

Fall Auction Committee

The planning for the fall in person dinner auction goes on all year long. It takes many volunteers to make this auction a success. Lots of hours procuring the items, planning all the details, coming up with new ideas, finding supplies, creating the graphics, promoting the event, preparing the save the date and invitation mailings, meetings and so much more. All of this is done with volunteer effort. Our annual auction provides a lot of the funds that Furry Friends needs to keep us going. Our ultimate goal is to help even more kitties.

Here is a little bit about our auction committee members.

Chris Nash has been our auction lead person since 2020.  She embraced our first ever all-on-line auction, due to limitations on public gatherings with COVID-19 for 2020 and 2021.  She is involved in all aspects of the auction. She has been a Furry Friends volunteer since 2009 and is a Shift Lead at her weekly shift at the Furry Friends Halfway House.

Lisa Baxter is the procurement lead for the auction. She is the keeper of the item donation list and sees that we mail out solicitation requests on time, she reaches out to people and companies for item donations and keeps us on track with where all the items are, their value and any special contingencies. Once all donations are received, she creates all bid sheets for our in-person auction. She has been in the position since 2013.

Nancy Bott does a lot of administrative jobs such as keep track of donations, pick up donations, hand-write thank you notes to all donors and helps with any odd tasks needing to be done on behalf of the auction committee.  She keeps the committee on task! Nancy has been a volunteer with Furry Friends since 2017.

Diane Stevens has been involved with the fall auction since 2015. That first year she was a photographer for the auction and then became the auction lead from 2016 to 2020. She still could be considered a manager of the auction. In addition to overseeing many of the jobs, she is responsible for the promotions, marketing, video, photos and usually paints a cat picture to be used as a logo for the auction. She has been a Furry Friends volunteer since 2014 and is a board member and holds the title of Marketing and Creative Director

Connie Ewart is a master of bundling the auction items into baskets and making them look so professional and beautiful. She is responsible for setting up our silent auction and live auction items.  Once items are purchased or won at the auction, Connie and her volunteers are in charge of item check-out.

Jenny Grass has been a Furry Friends volunteer since 2011 and has helped us with many of the graphics such as the auction logo and the save the date and invitation cards. She also helps maintain our website, creates graphics for other projects and was responsible for organizing our huge garage sale that was held in 2021.

Mary Wakely has been a Furry Friends volunteer since Feb 2020 and is the newest member of the committee. She has been helping us by soliciting items for the auction. She has been a huge help in this area. She is also on the voicemail team.

Karen Laksamana and Cherry Berry have provided auction support to us since 2012. They have provided all the data entry that goes on while everyone else is having fun enjoying the auction. Karen also helps with the website support and helps create the program that is given out at the auction.

 

Furry Friends is gearing up for the 2022 fall auction which will be titled South PAWcific. We will have an in person live and silent auction to be held at the Heathman Lodge in Vancouver on Saturday, September 17, 2022. Check out our website for more information about the upcoming auction. https://furryfriendswa.org/calendar/southpawcific/