You probably didn’t hear it here first. But for the record – i.e. the complete documentation for the unlikely (?) event of ever having to prove my credentials to any commercial entity again – I’ll post it here, too:

The speechlessness continues. I mean, thanks to all you generous people, I have come to “expect” fantastic results in all of our fundraisers. But this was definitely one of those moments that dreams are made of. If you had joined us for the last hour on Twitter, you know what went down. It started relatively slowly, but during the last 20 minutes of the auction, it was a real thriller. The price jumped, and the final bid is a tremendous end result. My thanks are not only due to the generous winner of the auction and the man who donated this piece of TV history, but also to those of you who followed along and hyped the fun. What a ride! A sky rocket ride, in fact!

Richard has been notified of the result, and tweeted back his congratulations, to be passed on to all of you.

He will make his donation once we make ours. What an amazing result for LOROS!

But it doesn’t stop there. Because we still have 50 auctions running. They will finish on Friday, so there is still time for you to possibly invest your donation budget in a bid and get something back. The fan-donated auctions have been doing extremely well today, too. All through the day, my phone kept on buzzing. (I had to temporarily put it on “flight mode” while I was at my induction event.) And so it is with much, much gratification, pride and joy that I can already tell you this:

We are very close to making another significant milestone!

What started out with a total value of about €780, has now risen to almost three and a half times as much! We are €212 away from cracking three grand!!! Unbelievable!!! And just consider this: We could dodge past the next milestone if every item received an extra €5 bid!

Here is a little list of moderately priced items, for your consideration:

1. All magazines have received their starting bid and are still below €10, for instance Vortex , Metro UK, or Brigitte
2. Some super cute hand-made chaRActers to enhance your fan collection, all around the €35 mark: Thornton, Dolarhyde (with Reba!) and Standring (with sheep!)
3. Or how about a hilarious RA facial hair toy, a unique picture frame, or a fan pack with an armitage water bottle for less than €30?

As it stands, the leader of the pack is the Crucible poster at an incredible €203.50, followed by the RA playing cards (178.28), and the yellow rose tea set (€169).

The highest number of bids are currently on the Crucible poster (44), followed by the Thornton altered tin (35), and the Glove Love RAPS (30).

Have a look – maybe something takes your fancy?

So, our proceeds already look very healthy. And we have not even started the fixed-price sale yet. It will go live tomorrow evening GMT. I will post here once it is live, and also announce it on Twitter.

The other option for contributing to the fundraiser is by way of a donation. More of those have come in over the course of the day – my sincere thanks to all donors. You are fantastically generous!

And now I wish you sweet dreams. I think we have earned them after the exciting auction finale this afternoon!