Kirsty Macafee’s virtual auction

Kirsty Macafee’s virtual auction

Annual fundraising auction moves online and proves a great success.

On Thursday September 24 the Diploma of Photo Imaging held their annual flagship fundraising auction. The proceeds from the event go toward their annual end of year student exhibition, covering the costs of catering and the production costs of an annual print catalogue showcasing students work from that year.

As with most other things this year, the auction ran a little differently. For the first time the auction was held virtually.

A large amount of organising went into the planning and facilitation of the event lead by Kirsty Macafee, a teacher in the Diploma course, and included the students working together, with each having an allocated role to play.

Program manager Jessie DiBlasi explained that “because we’re not together in a space we’re not there to troubleshoot things as quickly in the remote world so it was really finely tuned, and I think that is an absolute credit to Kirsty”.

The event was run through Blackboard Collaborate with a slideshow showcasing each item on offer as it made its way to the auction block and related information was provided by hosts who would announce the bids.

Current students donated prints from their folios, along with various other items donated by former students, teachers, and industry partners.

Attendees were able to use their microphones for vocal bids, but it was the chat function that was constantly pinging with new bids, commiserations and congratulations when a bidder was announced as successful.

Attendees were encouraged to bring along their own snacks and the festivity of the event transpired as it went on, people that only planned on attending for a short time stayed to the end and everyone got involved.

Jessie says, “we were going into it not knowing whether or not it would work, how successful it would be or how engaged people would be or how many people would turn up given the social aspect of a live auction”.

Students invited friends and family to support them, with a number having multiple family members attending the virtual event. There were attendees from Tasmania and NSW who would have not been able to attend an in-person event.

Considering their situation, and not wanting to overwhelm the students, the team set a conservative goal of aiming to cover the costs of the annual print catalogue. Amazingly the team more than doubled their goal.

The virtual auction is just another example of how the students and teachers involved in the Diploma have rallied together to overcome the roadblocks this year has put in their way.

Kirsty explained that “we’ve facilitated things like a virtual studio where we set students up in their own spaces and then we can check in on them and their shooting live into those spaces so we can offer feedback on their live shoots. That sort of replicates the experience in the studio. The students that have taken up those opportunities have really excelled because they’ve had constant feedback virtually as they would have in the studio”.

Kirsty says that some changes like this will continue to be implemented next year and be able to be applied to students that are shooting on location for example. This means that teachers can offer feedback in real time, something that hasn’t been possible before.

But Jessie says that both teachers and students are eager to be able to attend campus when it is safe to do so and use the millions of dollars worth of equipment and studio facilities that have been mostly unused this year. Along with being able to build peer and teacher relationships, facilitated by being in a physical learning space.

Jessie says, “whatever happens next year we might have a team facilitating online bids, that’s a really good example of how the way that we do things has changed forever because of the experiences we’ve had this year”.

The successful running of the auction has given the team a precursor to how the end of year virtual exhibition event will go. The team plans to be able to link to virtual spaces that showcase each student’s work like they would in a physical exhibition space.

The students will be sending official thank you to purchasers from the auction, but Kirsty said of those purchasers that she has spoken to them have responded thanking her for a great night.

Kirsty says “it definitely was a positive experience for all, and the students definitely feel that as well as everyone who was there. It was a really good night”.

05 October 2020

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05 October 2020

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Acknowledgement of Country

RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Luwaytini' by Mark Cleaver, Palawa.