A section of the large crowd of bidders at the Gleaner auction held in October. OK. IT'S December, and The Gleaner's auction is fast approaching. All systems are juiced and ready to go for the December 15 event at the Cinema II, New Kingston.
"We will have better control of the persons coming into the venue because there is one entrance, the other venue had different entrances and added to the confusion. At Cinema II, as you come through the entrance, you can play your $1,000 Gleaner dollars, and get a card which you will use to bid," said Hope McMillan, The Gleaner's PR/Marketing Officer.
Although the venue has changed, the auctioneers have remained the same with Jennifer Small and Ian 'Ity' Ellis sharing the honours.
"They will employ the same format they used last time of using the crowd's responses to determine the pace at which the bids increase," Ms. McMillan said.
Measures have also been implemented to ensure that dishonest bidders who deliberately overbid on an item, knowing they don't have enough money, do not handicap the process.
"People sometimes overbid foritems last time, some hoping that they might be able to slide through a loophole if the cashiers are lenient with them. This will not happen this time. As soon as you have been confirmed as the winner, head to the cashiers section where we will have a lot more cashiers working this time. We will be able to count your money faster, and if you're unable to match the bid price you put up, this will allow the item to be reauctioned faster than last time," Ms. McMillan promised.
Another major change is the elimination of the 'bid-by-mail' option.
"We're not doing it because it took up a lot of time to get it done last time, and nobody won by mail anyway," she said.
The Gleaner auction, the second such initiative by the newspaper, will start at 11 a.m. at the Cinema II venue.
