I’m interrupting my work because I really, really need to write an update. (Had a work call this morning, so couldn’t really blog, but now needs must.)

We have just made a big milestone on our fan-fronted auctions.

In last night’s update I disclosed that we were very close to a fantastic milestone. We have now reached it. The current total of bids made on the fan-fronted auctions has just about crossed the €3,000 mark!!!! What a result! Thank you to all bidders who have bumped up the bids! This year’s fundraiser is heading for a new record. That was a given, thanks to Richard’s donation, but even if we only look at the fan-donated auctions, the fixed-price sale and the monetary contributions in isolation, the proceeds are going to exceed anything we made before! Thank you, thank you, thank you.

BTW, just a little reminder, however, that the numbers given so far (jacket final bid, milestone on auctions) are provisional in that there will be deductions due to eBay/Etsy fees, as well as postage. So what you are seeing is the gross revenue but not yet the net amount. (However, I am all for celebrating the milestones as they happen – because I cannot foresee the fees and postage costs yet.)

The monetary donations have also continued to trickle in, and we are on the way to a four-figure number there!!! Thank you to all donors there. (Link behind image below.)

Transparency Update: The delayed start of the fan auctions has affected the general scheduling of the fundraiser. I had planned it in such a way that all shipments were to be concluded by Saturday morning the latest. This schedule facilitated time to receive all the proceeds from eBay and Etsy in my account, then tallying up proceeds with fees and postage, get all packages in the post and identify postage costs, in order to have the final sum ready for transfer of the donation on Sunday. With the fan auctions now finishing Friday evening, I can not be sure that eBay will process and transfer the proceeds immediately. (I’ll try and get in touch with “Claudine” to clarify whether eBay processes payments at the weekend.) Even then it will be a massive push to get the packaging of 40+ auction items and 180+ fixed-price items organised between 8pm Friday and 12am Saturday, as there are likely to be multiple purchases from some buyers/bidders, as well as the actual shipping at the post office. In short: I cannot guarantee that I have all the proceeds received in my account for donation transfer on Sunday and may have to delay. *meh* I am very sorry about that; my estimated timeline did not take a possible delay into account.

But now – hooray for the progress so far! We are basically at the mid-way point, so more movement is possible 😍.

Especially so as the fixed-price sale will go live this evening, aiming for 6pm GMT. I’ll write a blog post and tweet to let you know when it is live. The fundraiser items will be clearly labelled on the thumbnail image with a red-and-yellow logo, the listing title will contain the hashtag #RA50Auctions, and the individual listing descriptions will start off with the note “THIS IS A #RA50Auctions ITEM!!!!”. Only listings that are thus labelled are part of the fundraiser ☺️.