ASC Date Auction

Sorry I neglected this blog during the Date Auction planning process this year...I'm going to try to make up for it now so that ASC can have a better reference in the future :]

The ASC Date Auction is our biggest fundraiser for the entire school year. It's actually our only fundraiser that we have. Most of the money goes to fund our annual winter formal, but we also give a certain percentage of the profits to a charity. Traditionally every organization would provide a few members for auction. It isn't exclusive to just members of ASC organizations -- people that aren't part of ASC can also sign up to get auctioned off. Most people do a short talent and then get auctioned off afterwards.

This year, AAMC approached us and asked if they could co-sponsor with us. Usually AAMC has their own date auction, but unfortunately this year their date auction landed during homecoming weekend. Honestly, October is quite a disaster month to be planning events - you have fall break, Green & Gold, Homecoming weekend and Halloween weekend. Our own date auction was on a Sunday evening which isn't really the ideal time for any event.

Co-sponsoring has it's pros and cons, so it was something to think over before rushing into any decisions... (Pros: Draw more people to the event, appeal to different audience, share responsibilities. Cons: Split profits, how to split the work up evenly, communications). At the end, we decided that we will split the money according to the respective members/representative that get auctioned off from each organization.

One of our main challenges was getting solicitations for the date packages this year. Well, I think it has always been a challenge in the past. It's no easy task to ask businesses to donate something. You don't always get to speak to the manager or to the person that is in charge of donations. Even if you leave the letters to give to the manager, they don't always end up where they should. Often the letters are forgotten and disregarded - because lets be honest, a charity date auction isn't the first thing on a manager's list of things-to-do. Basically, in the future, it would be better if the exec board start solicitating possibly in the start of the year...like August, so that you have time to return to all the businesses and remind them/make sure that the letter has been received by the right person. Mostly likely you would have to go back a second, third time. Also, we aimed at high-classed restaurants this year because in the previous year, we thought the date packages weren't really 'quality' dates. However, we also limited ourselves by going to higher-classed restaurants. So basically...need to find a good balance. We had to do a lot of impromptu date packages at the end, and we had to spend some of the money, but it turned out ok at the end I think.

The set up of the date auction turned out pretty well. A lot of people thought having the tables was a lot more intimate and not as awkward with rows of chairs, which was also a bonus. We intentionally set up the tables because we decided to have finger foods and drinks this year.

Overall, the date auction seemed to turn out ok, which is a huge relief for me. We ended up making $1500, 500 more than our target $1000. Even after we split the profits up with AAMC, we had around 1200 left over for ASC. We also donated 10% of the profits ($150) to the Karen G Komen Breast Cancer, which was fantastic :]

Thanks to Tyler Hudgins, who is kinda amazing and decided to cosponsor with us this year. I'm sure he's glad he doesn't get 10 emails from me per day.
Obviously, everyone on the exec board...Se won, who's always got my back. Mike who was AMAZING and worked totally hard to get all the auctionee information and music and all that stuff, together. Ben and Eddy wrapping everything else and moral support.
Our MCs Tymon Francis and Koji Ukai
All our auctionees cause it takes a lot of balls to get up there and get auctioned off

Ok. That is all from me.

Til next time-

ASC Welcome Back BBQ/Field Day and...

HI EVERYONE!
HOPEFULLY EVERYONE IS HAVING A KICKASS SUMMER SO FAR & KEEPING COOL, CAUSE IT IS HAWT!

yeah, i just spelt hot, hawt..

Anyways, your amazing ASC exec board have already started planning for the amazing events next semester. We thought it would be nice to move the planning to the blog for more discussion; totally opened for suggestions, criticism, random comments whatever. It is probably easier for the exec board to carry discussions here instead of getting 10 page emails.

First event of the year is the ASC Welcome Back BBQ + Field Day...(and potential after party cough). It will be held on Saturday Sept. 6, 12-6 PM @ Yates Field.

This is a bit of a summary from the first email I sent out, merged with the comments I got back:

People: I think we have all to a agreement that we are going to try to make this as BIG as possible. It should be a great opportunity for everyone to get together and just chillax, talk about summer flings whatever. One of the major problems we are running into is estimating how many people we anticipate to come. TJ said around 60 people showed up last year (coming and going, not all at once). I want to aim for 100 people but I am not sure if this is a over-estimate or what. So if anyone else has a good...grasps of how many people would show up, that would be great. Also, since we are obviously going to try and target the freshmen class, we need the freshmen to actually come out. Did any of you guys go to any ASC events as freshmen? Cause I didn't...
Ben Yoo came up with a pretty sweet idea for freshmen - we can have sort of a buddy system going on, assigning a active ASC member (or whoever wants a freshmen i guess) to a freshmen (that they can facebook stalk/already know) and drag them along to the event. We all know how shy they are, so this is just so that they feel a big more comfortable going to a random BBQ.

FOOD: The usual list of Burgers (with Buns), Hot dogs (with Buns), Salad/Coleslaw, Potato Chips/Other junk food and of course having vegetarian burgers and hot dogs. If there's something else people want, please drop a note or something. (I just thought of cookies. we all like cookies right?)
In the past, every organization has contribute with a type of food. I want to continue with this tradition and I don't think it should be too expensive. However, Ben mentioned that because the BBQ will be a bigger event than previous years, each organization might not have money to contribute, because it isn't in their planned budget. I think most organizations should have spare money though, because we all know student organizations can't really depend only on the money the school gives. Once we have a estimate of how many people, we can have a better estimate with how much the food is going to cost. I don't think each organization will have to pay too much for food, but we can set a budget and if it goes over that budget, ASC can probably reimburse. I think that sounds fair?

Grill Team/Clean-up Team/Staff: We don't want one person to do all the dirty work, so we'll try to get people to sign up for one or the other in advance. There's only 5 exec members and we are going to need help with this.

Field Day: We have a whole field, so this can be opened up to suggestions. Mike & Ben are going to plan the activities for the field day, but obviously it should be something most people want to participate. Can be a tournament whatever. Preferably the activity would not need too much equipment.

After party: I think most of us want a after party, different atmosphere, freshmen will probably be interested. If enough people are interested, ASC will try their best to make a after party happen. Biggest concern - venue. Where can we hold such after party? Is there anyone willing to host a after party? We can always try to book tazewell but from previous experiences, that hasn't always turned out that well because the space is too big and it feels empty and people are awkward. And if its off campus, we will need drivers. Once we figure out a venue, we can figure out about...other finer details.

SUGGESTIONS/COMMENTS PLEASE! The more feedback we get, the better event we can plan!


I hope everyone is excited, cause ASC is coming back with a bang. get stoked people.