New idea: Poetry Scores Travel Experiential Auction

The other night while dining on beef brisket and enjoying Hop Rod Rye at the home of John Eiler, I hit upon what I take it to be a good fundraising idea.

Every year Poetry Scores organizes an Experiential Auction as a fundraiser. We hit up our talented and locally famous friends to donate unique experiences, and then people bid on the privilege of having that experience with that person.

This year, I want to add a travel category. I want for our friends around the country, and indeed across the globe, the donate the experience of spending two or three nights on their couch or in their guest bedroom, with at least one homecooked meal thrown into the offer.

I think between the core Poetry Scores folks we can line up pro bono B&B experiences in many places where one would like to travel. Since a local host with knowledge of the landscape and downhome hospitality comes with the offer, I would say the value of the experience is slightly higher than the value of the lodging, which we could conservatively price at $75 a night.

So the experience would be worth $150-$225 plus the meal and the local host intangible, making each package worth, say, $250-$325.

If each travel experience went for, on average, $100 each on auction and we lined up, say, twenty choice destinations (which would be easy to do), then we could make $2,000 on the travel packages alone, while offering to our friends and donors a bunch of fun bargain travel experiences. That alone would pay to print our next project.

Since travelers and local hosts would, in most cases, then blossom into friends, we also would continue doing something we are pretty good at, which is introducing people to one another and to new experiences - helping facilitate and deepen intimacies - making good things happen.

So; all, ya'll in St. Louis - where do you want to go? And, all y'all elsewhere - want to host a couple of travelers for two or three nights? To help raise money for Poetry Scores? To help translate poetry into other media, and thereby help the ancient art survive in the age of digital multimedia?

Let us know! brodog[@]hotmail.com.

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The image is of Poetry Scores cofounder Matt Fuller on our stretch limo golfcart at Four Seasons Scottsdale when we were composing our score to Go South for Animal Index. I don't have travel media hookups like that anymore, and I don't think Matt has anywhere to put you in his Hollywood bungalow, but I think the picture gets those travel juices flowing!