Three thanks , a lecture and a promise

So , I won the auction a couple days ago . First , my heartfelt thanks to Hilltopper46 and Russianwolf for donating blanks as a fundraiser to keep this excellent forum going . They deserve your thanks , as well ! Second , a lesser degree of thanks to those who didn`t bid . Your absence made it easier for me to be greedy . Not something that needs encouragement , where wood acquisition is concerned . But it raises the fundamental question : Why were you not bidding ?? Was it because there were too few blanks on offer ? Was it because you are strapped for cash ? ( I know many are , for some excellent reasons - nothing too be ashamed of . ) Was it because you have too much of most or all that was offered ( like me ) ? Was it because the blanks offered were too plain ? ( Hilltoppers pens sure didn`t look plain to me . I would be proud to own any of them !) Was it because they were advertised as being slightly less than professionally sawn ?( I know many of you love your PH vises , but a mathematically centered hole does not always give the best looking pen .) Was it because you only turn exotics because local woods are too plain?( Methinks you need a bit of an education .) Was it because you only turn plastics ? ( I prefer wood myself , even though I spent a third of my working career in plastics . )Was it because you prefer the lottery format to the auction one ?( Auction favours the deepest pockets , particularly when large lots are involved - not the case in this instance . Lottery favours the perennially lucky - believe me , they do exist , and I`m not one of them , unless I buy enough tickets to give me a one in two chance . ) I`m sure you can think of other pertinent questions . I think some discussion of this topic would be helpful to those who do their best to keep things running . And the promise . Some time reasonably early in the new year - assuming I can get the appropriate part of my anatomy in gear - I will put up for auction or raffle (probably the latter because my guess would be that it would raise more money ) one each of my collection of North American native woods - about 100 blanks . I will give you the best that I have - in my unbiased opinion , of course . Some will be plain - only a quarter of them grow on my farm - and you would complain if I were to take the superb blanks growing in your yards . Many will not be professionally sawn - the best looking pen will come from drilling at an angle through the blank , so you may want to start practising . Some will not be sawn at all - they will be branches . All will be identified as to specie , and most to a specific specie rather than the generic e.g Ponderosa pine , not pine . Some of you may want to contribute a wood I don`t have . That would be great . With your help we could make this into the best fundraiser ever . Got to leave now to buy some more wood . Wayne

Wayne,

You raise some excellent points that certainly need to be considered. Jeff has appointed me as our activities director, and fund raising falls under my responsibilities. In fairness, I believe we have had a good number of successful fund raisers in the recent past. That causes a potential for problems as well as helping with forum expenses. This is a free site, and too many fundraisers can have the tendency to antagonize some members. For this reason, I prefer to run raffles with multiple prizes. A raffle allows more members to participate, as auctions frequently price many members out of the competition very quickly.

I am behind on my responsibilities of late due to having to help my daughter with her domestic problems. I am slowing getting back in the swing of things, and even turned a couple of pens last night. In a couple of days, I will have a post in the Management Forum about how I will try to direct the activities of the IAP.

Thank you for your concerns and well made points. Also, congratulations on your win, and let's see some pens from those blanks!

I was lucky enough to win 1080Wayne's donation to the "Member in Need" raffle, and I will be anxiously watching for his next contribution! Every piece has a story, every tree has a history. You will know the details of each pieces birth, life and death when you get it ready for turning! I understand what Wayne says about some not bidding decause they only want exotics or "x" or "y". I'll offer a batch of exotics to the next raffle to fill in some of that blank space...Cav, put me on your donor list when you set it up. Jon

Wayne,

Congratulations on your win! You raise a lot of interesting questions and Cav gave a good reply on Auction versus raffle. As you can see, I am not located in North America and there are many other IAP members located overseas. While I am sure shipping can be handled in most cases, the shipping cost cuts into auction or raffle profits, or the price goes up to cover the shipping.

I don't participate for that reason. I prefer to send a flat support payment to IAP than participate in the raffles/auctions. Please be careful about giving generic lecture that covers everyone when everyone cannot be a part of such auctions or raffles.


Concerning the Lecture:
I have my preferences on the kind of blanks that I like and others have theirs. Personal choices and preferences in pen blanks are NOT matters of "education". That is the equivalent of saying "Vanilla is the best ice cream, once you are educated on the subject."

Any "education" on pen blanks will be purely subjective at best. I love teak as a wood (and many others too) but don't like it (most of the time) in a pen. I like some woods as straight grain, some woods as burls, and some as cross grain. Education is not going to change it, and I will not be "ignorant" because of it, nor will anyone else.

Lectures are OK when needed. In this case, the lecture comes across as condescending in matters that are personal preferences and choices that are not the same as yours. I have a graduate degree, fluent in English/Japanese, studied 5 languages, and grew up on a farm that was surrounded with virgin/old growth forest. I appreciate all kinds of woods, domestic as well as exotic, and I am sure others do too without being ignorant on the subject.


A suggestion:
If you want to reach as many people as possible with your message, break it into paragraphs so that it is easily readable. One big paragraph makes it difficult to follow.

I can tell you the reason why I didn't bid - I cannot afford it! I have to pay for a wedding, save up to buy a house, get a new car, and still make monthly payments on my massive student loan - all while working as an on-call teacher when someone gets sick...not the most regular paycheck in the world!

So if you need an excuse for not bidding, there's mine. Personally, I don't think that anyone should have to justify why they did NOT buy something. But that's just my opinion.

A suggestion:
If you want to reach as many people as possible with your message, break it into paragraphs so that it is easily readable. One big paragraph makes it difficult to follow.[/quote]

I agree. I quit reading after about 6 lines.

Yah, I participate in all the "raffles" but can't afford the auctions.

One thing I will not allow in future fund raisers is anyone making people feel bad for not participating in a raffle and/or auction.

No one has access to anyone else's financial records. Accordingly, no one knows what another person can or cannot afford. If Jeff had wanted this to be a "Pay Per View" site, he would have set it up as one. This site that Jeff makes available to us is a free site. Yes, donations are appreciated, but they are not required.

Having run a few fundraisers here, I know that different folks buy different amounts of tickets. Not to bring religion into the discussion, but the parable of the widow's mite comes to mind.

Let's let this subject end and move on.

Thank You

Cav, Jeff and all members, I don't know exactly how much time I spend on this site reading, looking at other peoples works of art, and offering my 2 cents of info on something I am new to myself. I would just like to tell you this , This site is the best forum ever. Very informative and the people are very nice to help a person in need. I do not know what I would have done without this site except throw out a lot of wood and acrylic. So, Thanks to all that make this site possible. And, that comes from the heart or pacemaker which ever is beating at that time.

Snorton20 said:

Cav, Jeff and all members, I don't know exactly how much time I spend on this site reading, looking at other peoples works of art, and offering my 2 cents of info on something I am new to myself. I would just like to tell you this , This site is the best forum ever. Very informative and the people are very nice to help a person in need. I do not know what I would have done without this site except throw out a lot of wood and acrylic. So, Thanks to all that make this site possible. And, that comes from the heart or pacemaker which ever is beating at that time.

Click to expand...

Joe,

Thanks for the positive comment!! BTW, keep both of them beating!!

I can see where the you would be disappointed when it looks like there wasn't much interest in raising money for the site, but an auction severely limits people's ability to participate. Whereas a raffle allows any and everyone to participate at whatever level they can or want to participate.

I think you can see that we all have a wide variety of opinions and preferences around here, so it shouldn't come as a surprise or an insult that many do not prefer "plain" or non-exotic woods. Personally I think the idea of making pens from local woods is great and I plan to do that when I get the "appropriate part of my anatomy" together. I think that the diversity of our interests in pen making is what makes this site such a gold mine of information. One person can't possibly incorporate every technique, medium, finish, pen kit etc. into their work. Heck, I can't even incorporate all of the stuff I like much less everything.

Lastly, every auction or raffle can't be the biggest ever. I understand the attraction of participating in something big or starting something big, but everything can't be big. There are alot of posts in alot of threads every day and it's hard to keep up with all of them. I didn't even see the post about the auction.

Anyway...not trying to brow beat. I'm done.

Sorry guys, but I believe the new layout also allows the fundraisers to disappear too easily.

Many of us (OK< ME) read the topics as viewed from the "active topics" or "new posts". Either way, the only way a topic stays "fresh" is if someone makes an entry. READING does not make it stay active. So, after about 2 hours of no posting, it hits page 2. And OBLIVION>

In the old format, fundraisers were grouped together and stayed pretty apparent. I think the new layout hurts this effort.

WEPYPFI

Let it go, friends.

Hey everybody, I thought if I could raise a few bucks for good old IAP, so be it. 1080Wayne, thanks a lot for the bid. The auction raised more than I ever thought it would.

Almost as soon as I made the post, I thought to myself - I bet it would have worked better as a raffle, but by that time someone had made the first bid and it was too late to change.

I prolly shoulda PM'd Jeff first to see if the timing was right, but I think looking back through the archives will show that there wasn't a particularly successful fundraiser for more than a few months.

If my reminders about the auction were taken a browbeatings, I apologize. Everyone deserves a unbeaten brow in this complex world that we live in. I think most of us come to this site relieve stress, not to compound it.

So.... no problems here with the way things turned out. Go turn a pen.

831 views in 10 days.

LOST IN SPACE!!!

My case is air tight.

ed4copies said:

Sorry guys, but I believe the new layout also allows the fundraisers to disappear too easily.

Many of us (OK< ME) read the topics as viewed from the "active topics" or "new posts". Either way, the only way a topic stays "fresh" is if someone makes an entry. READING does not make it stay active. So, after about 2 hours of no posting, it hits page 2. And OBLIVION>

In the old format, fundraisers were grouped together and stayed pretty apparent. I think the new layout hurts this effort.

WEPYPFI

Click to expand...

This forum software does indeed do some things differently than the old software. One of those things is the way that active topics are displayed. They are not broken up by forum.

I can make a change such that sticky topics are displayed at the top of the active topics search, but that will show ALL active topics from ALL forums.

What I would like to do is put a notice on the front page. Unfortunately, not everyone enters that way.

Please come over HERE to discuss how to improve the visibility of fund raisers, etc.

In maybe just a little bit of defense of Wayne, I do not take this list of questions "Lecture" offensively. I do see at least some attempt to try and get information about how to make fundraisers more successful. Attempting to organize anything will quickly lead to many questions that would not even be considered. Things like Auction or Lottery suddenly become decisions that must be made. And they can drastically effect the success of your effort.

For me there has very seldom been anything offered in a fund raiser that has caused me to think "wow I would really like to win that", In fact seldom has anything ever been given that I need at all. So my willingness to buy or not buy, bid or not bid very seldom has what is being offered in the consideration. I do consider how much I have already given and my ability to give more. Most of my donations to the group are simply direct donations. during the time of the Auction I did not bid, but I did donate almost $250 to the group in some form or another. Although there have not been fund raising events for the group recently there have been fund raisers. and for a short time there it was sort of a barrage of them. I point this out so that those organizing fund raisers realize that the beneficiary of the funds does not necessarily matter, from this end a fund raiser is a fund raiser.

In a nut shell there are two things that determine if I will give and how much I will give.
1. how important is the cause to me.
2. what do I have to give.

That's where the Activities Manager comes in, Randy!

Andrew, I can't speak for Bill but I don't think that a Activities Manager means He will be doing all the work for every fund raiser. I woudl expect that the day by day running of any raffle or auction will still be on the person that is doing it.