Every other Friday night, my mom and I go out to dinner at church spaghetti suppers, which are great because you can eat all you want for quite a bargain price, usually around $7 or $8. In these difficult economic times, that's really not a bad price if you consider how much food you can eat at these local shindigs! Well, we were leaving Friday night's spaghetti supper at the local First Christian Church, whose minister is a neighbor of my mom's and a lovely young woman, and I spotted this beautiful quilt hanging near the bake sale table. Naturally, I was drawn to go and look at it and it turned out it was being raffled off. So I thought, what the heck, may as well, so I bought six tickets, hoping for at least a snowball's chance of winning this lovely item. Well, I didn't. I never do. I have no idea why I continue to enter raffles when I have never won a darn thing in my entire life. I guess it's just a hope against hope that there will always be a first time for everything. I really wanted this quilt, too, thinking it would look lovely on my bed, but alas, it was not to be. I suspect that a lot of tickets were sold to church members before the spaghetti supper even took place, so in all probability, the quilt was won by someone who goes to church there. Tonight is our Civil War Society's annual Holiday dinner and book auction, at which there is almost always a 50/50 raffle. I suspect that I will fall for this and buy tickets, despite the near impossible chance of winning a dime, and right now, quite frankly, my finances are running a bit thin, so I could really use a cash infusion right now to get through until next payday. My winning streak is running a pathetic zero, so I suspect that I will spend the better part of the day considering whether or not to enter the raffle tonight or just to pass on it, knowing full well that I have a solid record of never winning a darn thing. I'll make up my mind tonight at the party, but until then, I'll just consider the possibility of entering.KENT CIVIL WAR SOCIETY HOLIDAY PARTY
Tonight is the annual Holiday Party and Book Auction for the Kent Civil War Society. I've been a member of this group since 1993 owing to a long standing interest in Civil War history. Our group's logo is taken from the photograph on the left and this is what we use on our T-shirts and other items. We use the proceeds from the auction, which also includes magazines and any other interesting memorabilia pertaining to the time period, to pay for our programming as well as the mailing of our monthly newsletter, for which I do the typesetting. For once, I have a lot of good donations to bring to said auction thanks to a retiring member of our staff at work who is also a Civil War buff, but who plans a move to Florida upon his retirement, necessitating some considerable downsizing, so I have been the fortunate recipient of some darn good stuff that I hope brings in a lot of money tonight. Naturally, I am concerned about our recession causing people to not want to spend much money this time. The last time that happened was right after 9/11, when I also had a great assortment of stuff, most of which only fetched a dollar or so instead of the usual five or ten dollars or more. I seem to recall that we only raised maybe $100 that year at best, hardly enough to add to our coffers. We do have membership dues that also help, but the programming money certainly allows us to bring in spreakers from afar, many of whom have presented fascinating programs for us. I just hope that people are generous tonight and open their wallets, because I've got some really great stuff for the auction that in ordinary years should fetch quite a good price. It just all depends on how people feel about the economy. Right now, it doesn't look great, and many of our members are retired and on fixed incomes, so I am hoping that at best, we can at least make a few hundred dollars to pad our treasury just a bit. Mostly, we've been relying on local speakers in recent days who don't have to travel very far, but it sure would be good to bring in some of the people who live further out who might have something really fascinating to present to us. So we'll see how things go tonight at the party!
2 comments:
Much as with the sale of Civil War objects, the raffles raise money for a worthy cause. Buy a ticket or two, and hope that much loved items will bring in a bit more. I've never won anything, either.
I belong to the Pejebscot Historical Society. It's years since I've been to Maine and I've never taken advantage of any of my benefits, but I believe that my yearly dues help them to keep the society in general, and the memory of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain in particular, alive and well.
Ah, another fan of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain! I read two really wonderful biographies of him after learning about him from the book "The Killer Angels" by Michael Shaara. Fascinating character, to say the least!
Well, last night's Civil War book and memorabilia auction went well, but I half expected that people would be reluctant to spend extra money right now, so some stuff that should have fetched a hearty price went for bargain basement rates. Quite a few "steals" last night, including two framed and signed Mort Kunstler prints that someone brought and donated to the auction that went for a mere pittance compared to what they would fetch at a Civil War memorabilia show.
Some antique books also went for rock bottom prices when they should have gotten a lot higher bids. One that I brought was a little volume of Lincoln speech masterpieces published in 1894 by John Hay and John Nicolay, who were members of Lincoln's staff. It went for a bargain price. I also brought another antique book that was the first published account of John Wilkes Booth and his assassination of Lincoln. That should have fetched a great price, but alas, it went for almost nothing when it could have fetched a pretty penny otherwise. Wallets were tightly shut last night, no big surprise due to the economy, but I had a real haul of goodies to donate that I hoped would bring in some big bucks. Instead, it only made a few dollars, very disappointing, to say the least.
Maybe I should have hung on to that stuff a bit longer until the economy recovers a bit so that it could have made us that much more money in a future auction.
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