I have recently been appointed chairperson for our school's very successful yearly auction. I need to come up with an "original" theme which reflects our goal (raising capital for our new property), our school motto (grow where you're planted) or something else uplifting. Any ideas? How about on-line auction idea resources?

The themes for our last two auctions were Sports (Good Sports for Education) and Building (Building on Our Success). Both themes were easy to include in our request info, flyers, decorations, etc. This year the chairperson included a month of pre-event activities with the building theme, i.e. Building Bridges in Our Community (book drive and Valentines to assisted living facilities), Building a Better Me (a fitness course designed by the PE department), Building a Better Tomorrow (environmental info and a Trash to Treasure contest) and finally Celebrating Our Success (building ice cream sundaes in all the classrooms). Many teachers also incorporated the building theme in their writing prompts, the best of these were collected, laminated and displayed at the event. This was a good way to make sure that everyone was part of the event, whether they could attend or not. Decorations included sawhorses and kid's dumptrucks, etc. The volunteers wore overalls and aprons borrowed from a home improvement center. Whatever the theme, we incorporate it in everything from the request for donation letters to the bid sheets to the thank you letters. I think it makes it much easier to plan the event. One suggestion, check your local party supply store or like catalog, if the stationary and decorations are available in your theme it will make it much easier. Some other ideas: Circus, Beach party, a holiday if one is close by, Country Western, "Planting the Seeds of Knowledge" and a whole gardening theme.Hope some of this helps.

We are trying to come up with an Auction theme that will be really fun and get people excited and want to participate. Feel like we've done all the main ones: A night in Paris, Olympics, 80s theme, red carpet, love boat, & Hoe down.

Anyone have a theme that worked really well?

For years (15 or 16) our theme was Mardi Gras, due in part to our event date at the end of Feb. Because we had committed to one theme, we invested a lot into decorations that could be used year after year. In the last few years, we have transitioned into new themes that still had the flavor of Mardi Gras, like A Night of Music or A Night to Remember, where we were still able to make use of a lot of the decorations without making the full purple, green and gold theme of Mardi Gras. A very creative parent designed store fronts that gave the appearance of the French Quarter. These were used to line the walls of the gym, which covered the bleachers and really transformed the gym. Rows of street lamps were also created to complete the overall effect.

Last year was the first year we moved completely out of the box by "Going Green". It was a play in two directions. The event date was moved to mid March, close to St. Patricks Day, but we also wanted to work hard to reduce the expense of putting the auction together, as well as re-using as much as possible and recycling the store fronts by giving them a make over with paint. We did not rent table linens. Instead we used a paper cloth that had the appearance of linen. Cardboard egg cartons were used to hold wheatgrass, which lined the rows of tables as centerpeices.

I think a Green theme could be used in so many ways for just about any school. Sponsor a contest for decorations by asking parents to purchase a claypot and saucer, decorate it and add a plant or flower and donate it. Guests can bid on the decorated pots and those who participated go in to a raffle drawing for some kind of prize. You could have 2 catagories, kid decorated and parents decorated.

We just did "Throwback to Caddyshack!" It was a lot of fun to put it together. We had it at a golf course and encouraged our guests to dress up as characters. The centerpieces were styrofoam cirles painted green and a gopher golf club topper, stuffed animal gopher or a clay (C4) squirel with a red wire sticking out. The decorations were simple and the guests really made it a hit by participating!

Our spring fundraiser is called Springetti because we always have a spagetti dinner with it. Each year we change the them. In the last 4 years we've had Sock Hop (the one year we didn't use Springetti in the name), Springett-sea, Camp Springetti and this year's theme: Springetti Western (a play on Spagetti Western). We've had huge success with the themes. They are fun and easy to decorate. The laterns we used for Camp Springett will be used again this year. Other than that, most of the decorations were made from paper. We couldn't reuse them, but we did recycle. Very little is spent extravagently. We realized our showcase were the items on raffle or auction. We don't want the decorations to outshine them, just enhance. Hope this helps.