Location: School Of The Art Institute Of Chicago
Date: Saturday, February 16, 2013; 2:45-10:30 pm
I had joined a Chicago Meetup
group for people interested in Volunteering and it was through them that I had
heard of this opportunity. The actual
gala was from 6 pm onward but Heidi, the organizer, said that they had enough
volunteers to cover that. They did
however require help for the setup starting from 2:45 pm and I readily
volunteered for that. After some
persistence, Heidi agreed to keep on for the second part of the event as well.
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| The auction items in Sections 100 to 300 |
I arrived back in downtown after
my project at Brunson and after a quick lunch and coffee, reported to
SAIC. I have been a member at The Art
Institute for over a year, but had never been to SAIC, which is just across the
street. I met Heidi and Teri, who were
coordinating the volunteering effort for this event and received instructions
for the afternoon. The first task was to
carry the supplies to either the banquet floor one level above, or the auction
floor, that was two levels above where we were.
We got down to it and soon I found myself carrying cases of wine and after that, some table linen. Now before the
readers think that linen is nothing to shout about, I am talking about stacks
of this stuff and it was by far the heaviest load I had to carry that day. After a few huffs and puffs, we had all
managed to get the supplies to the right places. The banquet hall needed some preparation,
including designing the floral centerpieces; not exactly my area of
expertise. So I moved myself to the
auction floor, where most of the work was needed.
We had to set-up the tables with
the items that were going to be auctioned.
There were six categories under which the various auction items – all of
them donated – were going to be displayed.
They were: (1) Section 100: Art and Entertainment, (2) Section 200: Gastronomy,
(3) Section 300: Kid-n-Play, (4) Section 400: Primp and Pamper, (5) Section
500: Travel and Leisure and (6) Section 600: Sports and Fitness. The items under these categories ranged from
Wine bottles, packages for gourmet diner, art pieces, toys, health and beauty
products, weekend getaways, jewelry, sports memorabilia, game tickets and even a prize to be a senator for a day, for a child of course.
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| Sections 400 to 600 - That end-table was my idea! |
The auction floor was shaped like
a ‘U’, with the central section in the form of a balcony that looked down on
the banquet floor. Each arm of the ‘U’
was lined with tables, with 3 of the auction sections on each side. Both of these rows was separated by a bar
area which meant that people had plenty of opportunity to get drinks and make
high bids. Teri asked me to start
arranging auction items on the table; particularly Section’s 400-600. Instantly I ran into difficulty because there wasn't enough room to place these items, without having them touch each
other. Besides that, I had to match the
actual item with the description card and the bid sheet. I finished one pass at this and was working
with two other volunteers, Megan and Megan.
We soon realized we needed more space, especially since some of the
items were huge gift baskets as well as signed NFL helmets. This led to some restructuring and which
meant starting again.
The girls were determined to make
it fit and while the problem could have easily been solved by adding another table,
we had been told not to, since they were required to set-up some bar
snacks. I did notice a table at the end
which could serve as a nice medium to display the sports memorabilia and looked
at the girls and said, “I am doing this,
who’s with me?” Fortunately, we were
in agreement and after a few more adjustments, we got all the items
displayed. I walked over to the other
side of the room and the folks there had managed to set Sections 100 to 300 in
the allotted space. Some of those items
were huge pieces of art, donated by the artists. The way the auction was going to work was that people would have time to look at the items and note down their bid. If someone else wanted to bid higher, they
could note it down below the earlier bid and whoever had the last bid before
that section closed, would win the item.
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| The woman with beads almost had her head knocked off! |
Since the auction tables were
done, I helped set linen on some of the bar tables and looked down at the
banquet room, which was looking fantastic.
Megan and Megan were busy prepping the last auction item,
which was a hot air balloon ride for four.
As a prop, they were building a model balloon and were going to have
cut-outs of people inside. It was
getting close to the start of the auction and the girls needed to get changed
and be ready to perform their duties as auction hostesses. I offered to help cut the figures out of
their templates, something I had been doing earlier that morning with
masks! With a few scares where I almost
chopped off the head of one of the women, I did manage to get it done and now
we were ready.
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| Why we do it |
Some of the volunteers who were
helping out just for this part left to socialize, but I had signed up for the evening session as well.
I went and asked Heidi about my duties and she said that I would be
working as an ‘auction runner’. I had no
idea what that term meant, but since that job was for later in the evening, I had
plenty of time to find out. For the
initial part, she asked if I could greet the people at the door, and direct
them towards coat check, parking validation and registration. As I stood at the door, I joked over a text
to my friend that since coming there I had lifted boxes, helped with the table setup and now was a doorman. Boy that PhD was sure
paying off!
But jokes aside, I was setting up
some of PADS posters earlier that evening and had an opportunity to read about
their impact on the community last year.
If I could help in a small way to help them match or exceed that for
this year then yes, that PhD was definitely paying off.
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