Thank you

This is going to be a rather long post I am afraid, as there is so much to say and so many to thank.

The Handmade Kids and Rudy & The Dodo Auction is now officially over, we have a few last things to finalise before we send in that nice big fact cheque to the Premiers Flood Appeal.

What I anticipated as being a small little auction, was so much bigger with us achieving the awesome sum of just over $17,000 – wow.  It has been a huge rollercoaster road, many many long hours, a few tears, a couple of tantrums, sleepless nights, joy, pride and so many more emotions over the 10 days it ran.  It was an exhausting journey but we made it.

I am forever indebted to Julia from Rudy and the Dodo, who all she did was say need a hand, and I said yes.  From that little word it all quickly snowballed with the most amazing offers of support through donations.  Julia is truly a selfless person.  She did not know me personally and yet she gave up so much to help.  With 3 little boys and a busy shop to run, I cannot imagine how she did it – she really is a wonderful amazing person.    I feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to do it with someone like Julia, she is quite inspirational.

We had well over 200 donations from stores of all shapes and sizes, many more than we could take.  We are very grateful to all those that offered their products for the auction, without them nothing would have been possible.  Please take the time to have a look through the albums still on facebook to see them, I know I personally discovered some fabulous stores I did not know existed.

Behind the scenes there was a fabulous team of helpers who also gave up their time during various parts of the auction.

Tania from Chicken Ink Creative who keep our Facebook Page updated and answered queries and helped right throughout the auction.

Caprice who we have since discovered has a fabulous little blog hiding and her Facebook Page – make sure you check it out.  Caprice also helped in all aspects throughout the auction.

Kobie from Ollie Rose who gave us a hand uploading the 200 odd photographs we had to do.

Kellie from Moo Woo, who helped in a variety of ways over the course of the auction, uploading photos and also helping at the very end.

Liz who was our appointed accountant and kept an eye on the tally for us.

My friend Sandy, who despite being very sick, helped at the very end to close it off and then brought me around a cooked meal. Something that I should have been doing for her considering her health.

Phew this is sounding like an Oscars speech isn’t it?  Should I thank my Mum and Dad?

Without all these people selflessly giving up their time, their products and all those bidders who helped us raise the sum of money we did, it would never have been possible.  So THANK YOU  to every single person who was involved, from spreading the word, behind the scenes, donating products or buying something!