[nfb-talk] Auctioneer

[Prows, Bennett (HHS/OCR)]

Hello,

There are blind folks that have trained for auctioneering, and have been auctioneers as well.  As an amateur, I only have conducted auctions as a hobby, and mostly just for NFB and some other charities. I have met one blind woman who graduated from auctioneering school, and was an auctioneer for a number of years, and seemingly was successful. There is really no reason why a blind person can't be an auctioneer.  Spotters are used, just as sighted folks use them to make sure the auctioneer registers the next bid. The only real difference is, that if you don't require verbal bids, and just use written numbers, or some other alternative method of getting the bids, the spotters become needed to provide verbal recognition for each of them. Of course, just as with any job, there are skeptics, and folks who just don't feel comfortable using the skills of a blind person, so the blind person may not necessarily get the opportunities of their sighted counter parts.

 In a couple of instances, I did two or three years of the auctions, and then the organizations decided to move on to get the help of a professional auction agency, so I wasn't used further, but that's understandable since the professional knows the inside ways of grouping items, and just how to get the most money for the high value merchandise.


Hope this helps a bit.

/s/

Bennett Prows

-----Original Message-----
From: nfb-talk [mailto:nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of d m gina
Sent: Sunday, April 21, 2013 12:19 PM
To: nfb-talk at nfbnet.org
Subject: [nfb-talk] Auctioneer

Hi,
We have a friend here in town who took training to become an auctioneer.
Now she thinks she has discrimination.
We wouldn't know, because we didn't follow her threw all of this.
She isn't bad at all, just isn't as fast as we have heard from time to time.
My question is this, are there any blind persons doing this kind of thing.
How do they get around all of the items that they need to auction.
We have no clue how to help her at all.
We don't know if she has a certificate anything like that.
She shared she would call and talk to us about it.
We are letting her reach us, instead of us going to her.

-- 
--Dar
skype: dmgina23
  FB: dmgina
www.twitter.com/dmgina
every saint has a past
every sinner has a future

_______________________________________________
nfb-talk mailing list
nfb-talk at nfbnet.org
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nfb-talk_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for nfb-talk:
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nfb-talk_nfbnet.org/bennett.prows%40hhs.gov