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Joining the Diving
Rebels |
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Well
it’s time for the circus to come to town! By that I mean the annual
Diving Rebels Chinese Auction. This is not only the biggest Rebels
fundraiser but also one of the most entertaining meetings the Rebels
have.
The
way this works is that we have a live auction for donated gifts. What
makes it special is that the items being auctioned are wrapped and
unknown to the audience. What is being auctioned might be a dive
computer, an old wet suit, spare fins, boxes of Girl scout cookies or
just about anything else. After you win an item by high bid, you have
the choice of either keeping the item, or forcing a trade for whatever
item was won before yours. The kicker is that you have to decide to
trade or not to trade before you unwrap your item. The previous bid
winner may have won the bid for a dive knife that you want. So you trade
off your wrapped item for the dive knife not knowing what you traded
away. This means that you at least get the dive knife, but what did you
give up for it???? Maybe it is an old smelly wet suit; maybe it is a new
dive computer. As trades can only go back to one previous round, the bid
winner before you will unwrap whatever you swapped him. He cannot have
it taken away nor can he force a swap for any other previously auctioned
items.
Your
item; whether you swap or not, can be taken from you by the next bid
winner. You also must unwrap it and disclose to the group what it is. If
all of this does not make sense, don’t worry it will be explained
again at the meeting.
What
we ask you to bring is some item of
value wrapped in a nondescript wrapping, newspaper or paper bags are
quite acceptable. Think about things you can talk your employer into
donating, things you got two of for Christmas. How many people really
need two paper shredders, twelve boxes of thin mint cookies or three
electric cheese straighteners?
If you want to win a bid bring
some $$$$, as the competition some times becomes quite fierce, and the
banter hilarious and the items worth the effort.
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