September 10, 2007 - Team Johnson Auctioneering
This past
Saturday we had the honor of serving as the auctioneer for the M. I. Hummel
Club National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. What a great group of
people! The proceeds this year went to Children's Hospitals and Clinics
in Minnesota. The auction was held Saturday afternoon, and over 600
people gathered in the Minnesota Ballroom at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in
downtown St. Paul.
As I was
getting ready for the event, I realized just how much I love being a benefit
auctioneer. I wasn't nervous, I wasn't apprehensive, I was
excited to conduct this benefit auction! For this event,
we brought in our entire team from Johnson Auctioneering. This is very
unique, as we are the only benefit auctioneering business I know of that bring
in their own people to take bids. I see a lot of auctioneers; when doing
a benefit auction to try and take care of the entire auction themselves.
This is tough, even if you're using volunteers from the organization.
Let's face it,
volunteers are great and have good intentions...BUT they are not experienced
in serving as ringmen! A lot of bids may be missed by using
inexperienced volunteers, and that's why we always bring in our professional,
experienced ringmen. I will admit this, an auctioneer is only as good as
his ringmen! Professional ringmen bring more excitement, enthusiasm and
entertainment to an auction.
Let me tell you
a little bit about the "team" from Johnson Auctioneering, a group that I am
very proud of. First, there is my partner and son, Nathan
Johnson. Not only is Nathan a great auctioneer, but he is also
a very good ringman. He is married to Anna, and they have a wonderful,
cute son (our grandson) Ewan Johnson. He is only three, so we'll give
him a few years before we put him to work in the auction business.
Tim Banks has been working with
us from the start, and does a marvelous job as our most experienced ringman.
He is from Cannon Falls, and just finishing up at the seminary. He is
the youth pastor at Our Saviors Church in Cannon Falls, and has always been a
great basketball player! By the way, Tim is single and many times at our
auctions the single ladies have asked if they could bid on Tim!
Katie
Swanson is what I call a natural when it comes to auctions!
Katie is originally from Red Wing, and now resides in St. Paul. She has
worked as a nurse, and is a real "people person." She regularly works as
a ringman for us, but from time-to-time will also be our "Vana White" and help
display the items we are selling. She is an expert at working the ring,
and says she especially loves benefit auctions.
That is one
thing we all have in common at Johnson Auctioneering...we all absolutely love
this business. I am urging Tim and Katie to enter the ringman contest at
the Minnesota State Auctioneers Conference and Show in January, and if they do
I expect some exciting results! Nathan has already indicated he will be
in the Minnesota State Championship Auctioneer contest this year.
Oh, by the
way...a check for over $38,000 was given to the Minnesota Children's Hospitals
& Clinics at the banquet Saturday night in St. Paul. We sold 18 Hummels
& other items in the live auction, and were proud to be a part of this very
successful event. I even had a person in attendance comment; "I really
enjoyed the people you had working the crowd and taking bids, they were so
professional!" See, I told you the auctioneer is only as good as his
ringmen!
Till next time,
we'll keep focusing on the enjoyment in raising funds by auction!
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