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We call them nickel socials or Chinese auctions.

the term " Chinese Auction" is in poor taste and very NON-PC in most parts of our country now. Our area often calls it by the " receptacle" in which the tickets are dropped. The most common are " Teacup Auction" or " Paperbag Auction".

A silent auction is usually when there is a list next to an item and you sign your bid on the paper, and you hope no one comes along and bids over.. a " table" is " open for bids" for a certain amount of time, and then " closed".. it's fun to see people hover over one paper, and keep trying to outbid one another.. and see who gets the last bid in before the table is " closed" !

Tricky Tray is our biggest fundraiser in our K-4 school.

We host a dinner $45 per head - this includes 1 drink, dinner and about 25 tickets to put into the "drawing" for a particluar item. We sell out at about 450 people every year.

Every class in the school creates 2 baskets values at $75-$80 each - this money is collected from each student in each class ($7 per student)The class moms buy the stuff and create the theme baskets. We get donated items from local businesses, resteraunts etc to create other baskets. We end up with a few hundred baskets values from $75-$300. Face to face donation strategy is MUCH better than mailing a letter. Go into the business with a donation in mind. See if the driveway sealer will donate a driveway sealing - check with the parents who are trades people - 5 law cuts etc... Most people if asked will do something. Once you get all the donations - you can group things as a committee to create a "basket"

The night of event we sell additional boards of tickets so peole can buy more to increase winning chances.

Each basket has a bowl next to it for people to put their tickets in. Each Basket winner is selected from the tickets that were put in that baskets bowl.

It is a lot of work to coordinate but we get it done with a great committe approach. Tons of fun and a great night for all.

We moved to North Carolina from the midwest over 2 years ago. One of our first fundraisers we attended for our new school had a "Chinese Auction"...I was floored! I had NEVER heard the term and coming from the midwest nobody would have thought to even think that term. I was able to get our school to change it to just a "Silent Auction" but I know some people couldn't figure out where I was coming from. One lady told me straight that she didn't understand what was wrong with "Chinese Auction"...I just smiled!

Bertha is the true Tricky Tray master--I'll see if I can get her to post re: the start up costs, but I'll see what I can remember from ours:

I should think (depending on where you live) $750-$1,000 for the hall deposit. I think we spent around $75 using a bulk rate stamp for our donation request mailing (envelopes and paper were donated by me), I didn't buy the tickets for the actual drawing, but we assigned specific colors according to their worth -- small, medium, large, super and grand, we spent around $200 placing ads in the local and regional newspapers, around $25 to color copy posters that we posted everywhere and another $25 for the flyers that went home with the kids. We also spent money on clear cellophane to wrap the baskets and on curling ribbon for the baskets that was color coordinated with the ticket color (small prizes got red ribbon and had red tickets etcetera). We were lucky and had custom made boxes donated--they made the event look really pulled together, and with the color coordinated ribbon it looked great.

We saved costs by holding it in our highschool with donated baked goods on the tables and we sold donated soda, chips and hot sandwiches to make extra money. We also had a 50/50 and money hat. We received minimal support from our principal and staff (it's a loooong and depressing saga) which is why we advertised heavily with the public--it paid off because we ended up netting just over $12,000.

Definitely break down the baskets by worth if you can. We had over 300 baskets in the end so to not do that would have have been crazy. We kept things simple and kept all ticket prices at $5, then just altered the number of tickets depending on the worth of the baskets (small baskets/prizes 25 tickets for $5, medium 15 for $5, large 10 for $5 Grands 5 for $5 and supers were 3 for $5). We felt that was fair, and actually received a lot of comments from attendees that we were too generous with the tickets.

[ 09-21-2005, 12:42 AM: Message edited by: kmamom ]