Lose Some, Win Some

What a roller coaster of a week this is- yesterday was pretty stressful. I received an email from a very pretty girl who had signed up to be auctioned saying that she was no longer single and didn't want to participate. This was upsetting because her photo is all over the place in our marketing, some of which can't be changed, and she would have done well. She had offered to find someone else, but I didn't really want to be bothered with going through the whole emailing process with a new person. Then, yesterday afternoon, I received a call from a very good looking guy who was going to be auctioned and was in the lead to be selected for the Wendy Williams show saying that he couldn't participate because of work conflict. That was extremely disappointing- he would have done extremely well in the auction. It was also slightly embarrassing to tell the producer that he wasn't going to be able to participate, just a few days after I told her was available- makes me look like I don't have my stuff together. Things were looking up late yesterday though- I finally got the contact info for a number of fire fighters and one in particular would be a great candidate for the Wendy Williams Show. He is very attractive and has a big personality and he is really enthusiastic about being on the show. I gave the producer his info and she is speaking with him tomorrow. So hopefully, we'll have a final decision on that. This afternoon, I got back to the office and there was an enthusiastic email from a young woman who wanted to sign up for the auction. She included her photo as well and she looks very pretty. She seems like a really nice person too. If the other girl hadn't dropped out, then I wouldn't have had space for our new bachelorette. So, I was happy to have her included. She said she's invited her coworkers too. It always works great when people who are in the auction promote the event to their friends/coworkers- we really need their help in doing that.

So things were looking down for a bit, but today they're getting back on the upswing. In other good news, I finally sold our last calendar spot. It is a returning sponsor from the last few years. I'm so relieved. I was determined that I wasn't going to have a calendar space go unsold, but it was looking pretty bleak. If this sponsor hadn't come through, I really don't know what I would have done. Tomorrow, I need to proof the calendar again. I'm still waiting for the ad copy for a 1/2 month spot, but hopefully that will come in tomorrow. The goal is to get the calendar to the printer on Monday, but I think it might not be until Tuesday.

I'm working on getting more auction items for both events. I'm doing a lot of following up with people that promised items. This can be a very frustrating experience. There are a lot of people that committed to auction items, but I have to keep calling and calling and emailing to try to actually get the item in hand. There is a salon in Boston that has been promising a gift certificate for 5 months. I can be pretty relentless- one has to be in this job. I will follow up as many times as it takes to get the auction items. But it is extremely time consuming to keep following up with people to actually get the items. More than half my day gets spent on following up on auction items. I'm also waiting for ad copy for the date auction program from a couple of sponsors. I understand that everyone is busy, but the amount of time that I have to spend chasing people for things they already promised is really annoying, particularly because it is time that could be spent working on lots of other things.

Today, I was up in Worcester for most of the day with a group of Boston University students that were part of a freshman volunteering program. They came to the warehouse where we store our surplus stuffed animals and spent the day sorting and boxing up stuffed animals. This is the 3rd year that we've had the student group here and they always do a great job. There were a lot of things that I didn't get to today though because I was out most of the day.

Anyways, I am super tired- I almost didn't blog tonight, but I missed blogging yesterday and didn't want to do that two days in a row. I find blogging a good way to unwind as well and I get to reflect on things that happened during the day. Tomorrow night, I'm back on the Boston harbor cruise selling raffle tickets. I have a lot more volunteers this time, so hopefully things will go well and we will bring in a few hundred dollars. I will keep you posted on our high seas ticket selling adventure!
Until tomorrow..