| ByGerri Berendzen
Movies, books, wine and a healthy amountof friendly competition.
Judging from the offerings and atmosphere at the annualACES silent auction Friday night, those are a few of thethings copy editors enjoy.
Add to that list helping the ACES Education Fund, whichis the real winner after all the bids are totaled.
The record $5,648 raised at the auction -- one of thehighlights of the 11th American Copy Editors Society nationalconference -- goes to the Education Fund, ultimately benefitingthe next generation of copy editors through ACES scholarships.
| Shopperskept tabs on bids on hundreds of donated items. (Photoby Christine Steele) | | Part of the fun of the event comes from bidding rivalries,rooted in the knowledge that bidding up a friend leadsto more money raised.
“I’m just going around trying to bid people up,” saidJennifer Lash of Roll Call.
Lash got into the spirit of the event with several bidsand was celebrating when she made the last bid on an itemshe wanted.
Yet that friendly competition wasn’t always welcome.
“Psychological warfare was going on here tonight,” saidMerrill Perlman, director of copy desks at The New YorkTimes and an annual ACES auction supporter.
Perlman was referring to an unorganized effort by severalpeople to bid up a water pitcher she wanted. During theday, many conference attendees heard about the effort Perlmanundertook to get the water pitcher on a bidding table. The pitchers werepart of the water station in every meeting room, and Perlmanpersuaded Deirdre Edgar, ACES vice president/conferences, to ask theMarriott for a donation of one for the auction.
With word out that Perlman wanted the pitcher, a lot ofpeople started bidding on it. By the end of the evening,Perlman had plotted with other ACES members to employ somestrong-arm tactics to assure her’s was the winning bid.
“One particular Executive Committee member suggested thoseparticular strong-arm tactics,” Perlman said.
That kind of good-natured fun helps the auction raisethousands each year. The auction raised more than $4,900in 2006 and ACES auctionmeister Scott Toole of the Easton (Pa.)Express-Times was hoping for an even bigger take in 2007.
“I’ll be really surprised if it didn’t completely blowaway the previous auction record,” Toole said as biddingheated up around 6:30 p.m.
Items were available for viewing starting at 10 a.m. Friday,and the countdown for final bids started 5 seconds before7 p.m.
“There’s just a lot of neat stuff here,” volunteer DavidMoney, of the Dayton Beach News Journal, said as he watchedover the items and bidders in the afternoon.
me of the items included tuition to two Poynter News U.headline writing courses, an American Press Institute trainingpackage and two pairs of airline tickets on AirTran.
One of the API seminars went for $500, a bargain at twicethat price, and a set of airline tickets went for $400.
But bids of $10, $25, $60 and more on items as variedas photo prints, a DVD of the movie “The Paper,” and bottlesof Sass wine (a sideline for University of Nebraska-Lincoln professorJerry Sass) also helped fill the Education Fund coffers.
“We love Jerry, and I want to taste his wine,” said KayJarvis, deputy managing editor of The Denver Post, as shewrote down a bid.
And then there was that final bid on a certain glass pitcher,which had snuck up to $60 through the efforts of many.
Just as the bidding wound down, Perlman rounded up herminions to ensure she would be using the bubble wrap she’dpicked up to get the pitcher home. Hope it survives theplane trip.
Gerri Berendzen is copy desk chief at the Quincy (Ill.)Herald-Whig. | 
| Ron Smith (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) admires a photo of "The Dog Bride." (Photo by Christine Steele) | | RETURN TOWWW.COPYDESK.ORG |
