On Saturday night I was at Grosvenor House to conduct an auction for the Bunburys. This is a charity founded by the redoubtable David English MBE, supporting the English School's Cricket Association. Seven of the current English XI are former Bunburys, of which David is quite rightly proud. Two other charities benefitted from the evening, Ian Botham's Leukaemia Research, and Eric Clapton's Crossroads Centre. The auction raised £158,500. However, the evening almost came to a halt just as I began auctioning a dinner with Ian Botham, when someone leapt up and said, "I'll give you £50 not to have dinner with Ian Botham." I fined him £500 (for the charity). Immediately, Mike Gatting leapt up and said, "I'll give you £500 not to have dinner with Ian Botham." Next up was Freddie Flintoff who repeated, "I'll give you £500 not to have dinner with Ian Botham." He was followed by Dennis Lillee, Geoff Thomson, Rod Marsh, David Gower, Jason Leonard, and several others, bringing the total of those not wanting to have dinner with Ian Botham to £12,000. To have dinner with Ian then went for £14,000 - Piers Morgan generously throwing in another £10,000 if he could be present at that dinner -raising £36,000 in all on that one item. The evening ended with a wonderful performance by Eric Clapton, before guests began drifting home around 2.00am.
2 Comments:
Jeffrey,
A great result! And what a great ploy for the future; generating donations to NOT partake in something.
It does give people who might wish to donate but perhaps cannot afford the say, £14,000 for "Ian Botham", the opportunity to contribute, what amounts at the end of the evening to, very substantial sums.
Jeffrey
I was lucky enough to have been there Saturday a great night, and I thought you did a great job as the auctioneer extracting thousands from pockets that were tightly closed at first.
Well Done !!!
Post a Comment
<< Home