Ladies~

I need some help here. My guild has asked me to coordinate a "yard sale" or "trash to treasure sale" for our June meeting. I said that I would be happy to, but I don't know how to do this.

Can anyone tell me how your guilds have done it?? Any advice is appreciated!!

Thank you!

We ask all the members to bring whatever they want to put in the sale, have a price on it, and what's left they have to take back home or someone volunteers to take it all to a donation center. We don't limit it to quilting items, anything they want to bring to sell. We have several tables set up in the back of the room and someone in charge of taking the money and making change. We call it White Elephant Sale and have it once a year. Homemade baked goods sell great at the sale too.

We have done it two different ways. One is what is called(I don't know why) a Chinese Auction. People bring what they want to put in sale lay it on a table in groups. You tape a brown paper bag under each group. Then you sell tickets (like 5 for a dollar). Each person writes their name on each ticket. Then they can go around the tables dropping as many tickets in the brown bags as they want. Maybe in only one or two, or they might drop a ticket in each bag. When all have finished doing this. You take each bag, shake it up so tickets are mixed and draw a name. That person is the winner of that group of treasures.

If Craig's list covers your area, you can post an ad for your sale there.

The second is to have everyone bring in their items already marked with a price.(We always tell them that if it doesn't sell they have to take it back home with them.) Put them out on a table and allow enough time for everyone to check out what is there. You cannot buy until a given time. Then you let everyone loose to grab the stuff like a yard sale. You have one or two cashiers to take the money. If stuff is left after the first round, you cut the price in half to see if you have more takers.

AT our "guild garage sale", we signed up ahead of time, so each person had a table set up for them, then we priced and sold our own items, giving 10% of our profits to the guild.
It was a lot of fun and i got rid of a lot of stuff.

Our group made table center pieces and sold raffle tickets and made over $300.00. We are going to make a quilt (each contributing a block) and in Nov. of this year we will raffle it off. I don't know if you will have time to do that for your sale. One of our ladies has a long arm and she will quilt it for us. We expect to make $$$$. It is always good to have something that is NEW among all the used things that are sold at a yard sale. you can go on line and find a check list for holding a yard sale.

Or charge for renting the table - $20. That way, the guild itself isn't responsible for any clean-up as every seller MUST clean up their table. The guild will probably end up making the same, if not more, money from table rental.
And members can share a table. I would keep it quilting/sewing related only.

Figure 10 tables at $20 nets the guild $200. Taking 10% of the sales, would be having to do $2,000 worth. And since the guild has no control over the "crap" the member might or might not bring in, it's better to go with the certain money.

And members with huge stashes KNOW what they have, and are more than willing to part with the $20 rental fee for a table.

If you open it up to Craigslist, you never know who is going to show up, but also, it would be nice to give other guild members an opportunity for first crack at the goodies.

Sales might be higher (?) with outsiders, but crowd control might be an issue. My 2 guilds are at max attendance on a regular basis and wouldn't be able to let another 20 people in the room even if they wanted to.

Our guild has a silent auction. Every one brings their unwanted stuff: fabrics, UFO's, patterns, books, magazines, ect. It is all put in neat stacks on tables with a slip of paper. We are given some time,not more than 10 minutes to walk around the table and write our name and bid on the paper. At the end of the time allotted the person whose name and bid is the last on the paper is the winner of that stack. We have tried it other ways, but this is so much more fun.

Thank you all so much! I knew that you all could help me out!!

Keep the ideas coming!