Our last auction of 2010 was really cool! The auction featured the lovely Bif Naked with a comfort doll that we gave a really wild spikey hairdo when we knitted it.. sort of to match Bif’s own wild spikey hair that she sported after it grew out from her chemo sessions. Knowing that Bif has a weakness for bubble gum (as per her twitter tweets) we chose bubble gum pink for the doll’s shirt and sent it off… within short order, we were sent two lovely photos of Bif by her mgmt people.
A few weeks later, we heard that Bif was coming near our town for a show, bought tickets (our first time seeing the lovely Ms Naked live) and contacted her mgmt to ask about having the photos autographed at the show. They said yes, and so it was arranged (she did a meet and greet of sorts with most of the audience after the show). While at the show, we scooped a poster (with permission from the venue staff) and took it home until auction time. One auction package included an autographed photo of Bif with the poster, the other package was the second autographed photo along with a copy of Bif’s new cd, The Promise.
We decided to combine a few items in this last auction – items that have been kicking around for awhile… waiting for the right time to auction them off… included with Bif’s items were pictures and swag from The Trews as well as The Mudmen.
We met up with the Trews at the Nakusp Music Fest after arranging it with their mgmt people (very nice people!) and snapped this great picture of the band about 10 minutes before they were due to go on stage. The band was really into doing this and posed right there in the dressing room with their comfort doll. John-Angus MacDonald took charge of the doll and was going to fight the other guys for it (joking.. but he did end up holding the doll for the photo and did end up walking away with it still in his hands 🙂 )
The festival was in July of 2010 but the time never seemed right to auction it off so we waited – in November The Trews came near our town again for an acoustic show, so again, like with Bif Naked, we contacted mgmt and asked about having the photo autographed. They were great – said yes of course, so we bought a ticket and off we went to the show. After the show, the band stayed out in the lobby of the Venue at the merch tables, signing autographs and talking to the fans, and we had them autograph the photo.. they were thrilled to see themselves with the doll in print. At the time of the photo in July, they also donated a few guitar picks (with custom signatures on them) which were included with the photo.
Another band we met up with at the Nakusp Music Festival was The Mudmen. We contacted them on their Facebook page and asked if they were interested in doing a comfort doll photo and they said ‘yes!’ We met up with them at the festival before the show but it wasnt a good time, so we met up with them after their set, when they were in the merch tent meeting with fans and signing autographs.. we dragged them (smiling and willing) into the sunlight so we could snap a pic or two.. we got two really great ones.
After they were done with the meet and greet, they donated some swag for us to auction off – a Mudmen t-shirt and a Mudmen CD.. very cool.
The auction itself did very well… on behalf of Bif Naked, The Trews, and The Mudmen, we raised $135.00 after expenses, which we used at the World Vision Gift Catalog. With the funds we were able to purchase the following items:
3 soccer balls, 2 mosquito nets (which will protect up to 8 children in total), and we provided school lunches to 50 children for an entire month. We wanted to not only protect kids from Malaria (nets) and feed them so they can learn but also give them something to bring some fun into their lives (soccer balls). We hope that the band’s are pleased with what we chose and we are pleased that they chose to be part of our project.
