I am not (necessarily) promoting the cause of Con or Bust, although some of you may be interested in that, too, but I wanted to show a example of what can be done using Google Docs and WordPress. Con or Bust is an annual on-line action to financially help people of color/non-white people attend SFF conventions. Each item up for auction is a post on a WordPress website. An index to the items, a link to the items post, the current bid, and the number of bids, is presented as a spreadsheet in Google Docs which the user can search and sort to find, for example, all the books or jewelry items up for auction. Clicking on the link takes the user to the items post, where a bid can be entered using only a name and an email address -- no registration required. Payments are accepted through PayPal when the auction ends, although if a buyer pleads some impediment to using PayPal, other arrangements can be made. Here is the website: con-or-bust.org/auction/ Here is the spreadsheet of all the items currently up for bid. Click on a link to see the details and the bidding history for a given item. https://docs.google/spreadsheet/lv?key=0AtwXRlAhaXQudF9kdVppanp6Z3htWGV3TDZubEY4VUE&rm=full#gid=0 For libraries in small towns where everyone knows everyone else and the library is less than 15 minutes away, this probably doesnt make sense as a fund-raising project, but for larger communities this model might work very well. From the Con or Bust website: Con or Bust helps people of color/non-white people attend SFF conventions (how to request assistance; upcoming cons). It is administered by Kate Nepveu under the umbrella of the Carl Brandon Society, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization whose mission is to increase racial and ethnic diversity in the production of and audience for speculative fiction. Con or Bust isn’t a scholarship and isn’t limited by geography, type of con-goer, or con; its goal is simply to help fans of color go to SFF cons and be their own awesome selves
Posted on: Tue, 18 Feb 2014 11:33:06 +0000
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