The dozen or so Rotarians had a fantastic night at the glitzy Tauranga Gala Dinner on Friday night. The Charity Auction made $73,892 gross from 18 items!
The top money from the 6 items in the silent auction made $55,000! $14,000 went to the 2 nights for 4 people at the Blue Duck Lodge with helicopter flights, closely followed by $11,000 for 30 minutes of thrills in the local Jet Fighter. A Brendon McCullum shirt $8,000, Lexus and Craggy Range weekend $9000, lunch with Kane Williamson and Neil Wagner $7000, All Backs RWC shirt $6000. The 12 items in the silent auction made $18,892.
The net proceeds will be distributed 40% each to Curekids and BOP Youth Development Trust and 20% to our Club’s Big Wheel Trust fund.
These are the provisional numbers but there’s still some costs to come off this.
$55,000 Live Auction
$18.892 Silent Auction
$73,892 Gross Sales
$13,500 Less cost of purchases to be paid by Rotary
$60,392 Net Auction Surplus
$ 240 + Guest Donations
$ 1.200 + Rotarian donations
$61,832 Provisional Total
Big thanks to the team of Sharon Hitchcock and John O’Hagan who pulled in great items. Peter Wayman also produced 2 nice items and Neil Gedge and Tracey Ruddick Gudsell helped with packages too. Jackie O, Allan H. and Louise C. also helped on the night with the running of the auction. We had a great time, with representatives from BOP Youth Development Trust, and Frances Benge CEO Cure Kids came down from Auckland especially to be there. President Brett and Anna couldn’t make it unfortunately. And thanks to the 6 Rotarians who donated $200 each to the cause.
Rotary got good exposure in front of 500 well-healed guests. I gave a 3 minute speech to explain what Rotary and the 2 other charities do. I didn’t get the same enormous introduction that Brendon McCullum got, surprisingly. Haha.
Also a special thanks has to go to all the donors of the items plus Heath Ingham, organiser of the Gala Dinner, for choosing us to be the recipient charity. He’s declined several invites to come to lunch – he’s quite a humble and retiring guy!
So it was a fantastic result, more than we really hoped for in these times!
