soonami

I don't know how everyone else does auctions, but what our club does is twice a year (November and May) we have members bring in and register trees for the auction. Each person numbers their trees for the auction from with the letters from A-Z, and when the auction procedes all the A's go first, then B's, C's... This way everyone gets a fair chance.

And when the trees are sold, 20% of the sales go the club, paid by the seller. This way the person who put the tree up doesn't have that much to lose. This year we had a couple people bring in trees that were sold for $300+, that's $60 for each of those and three trees would bring in $200.

And also, those that bring in a big tree and know they will make some money on that will then be more open to bid high because they know that if they sold a $300 tree day, even if they bid $200 on a tree, they will still leave with a good tree and a profit.

This works great for my club, so you can get new material, the club benefits, and often members will leave only having to pay a little of money. If you win $200 Juniper and brought in ten smaller JBPs that sold for $20-25 each, then you basicially traded trees and the club got the commision.