Like several events this year, the Rotary Club of Burns Lake is also taking their auction online this year due to the pandemic.
This year’s auction will be held over a period of four days, unlike the two day auction that happens every year. The auction will be taking place on November 16, 17, 18 and 19 and on the 20, i.e. the fifth day, the auction items can be picked up.
“This year we are going to use this program called Auctria; it is tailored for community groups to do online auctions. It is going to be set up on our rotary Facebook page,” said Rotary member Rick Dobbs, who will be co-chairing the auction this year with member Chantal Tom.
“It is still going to be live online and so we are still going to have an MC explaining the products and where they come from. It is still going to have the feel of someone talking to the public and then the iPad will go around to the items as the person is talking to show what people are bidding on,” said Dobbs.
The club is still in the development stages of organizing the auction. However, they will keep having regular updates on their Facebook page and when a person will go to their page, there will be a link to the Auctria site with an explanation on how they can sign up to get a bidding number. The club is now in the process of approaching businesses to see what they can donate and are currently gathering different auction items.
“People before always had this over at the chamber in a room, and they were used to coming down and sitting in there and bidding, people were used to it being phoned in and people were used to having it on the radio but this year is going to be totally different. It is all online. First year might need to work out the bugs but by next year, people will be used to it because I think we are going to stay with the new way of doing it,” said Dobbs.
The auction will be held at the Burns Lake Gathering Place and would be live cast from there. Since it is online, it would also be open for people beyond Burns Lake.
Priyanka Ketkar
Multimedia journalist
@PriyankaKetkar
priyanka.ketkar@ldnews.net
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