We’re putting the final wraps on the 2010 KAA Convention at the Wichita Airport Hilton.

Past presidents of the Kansas Auctioneers Association

Lynn Langvardt was the winner of the Kansas Livestock Bid-call Contest held in El Dorado on Thursday night. Last year’s livestock champion, Charlie Cummings, won the KAA Bid-call Contest this year at the state fair and was installed Saturday night as the new state champion.

Here’s some video that was streamed live via Ustream using a Motorola Droid. It features current IAC Champion Kevin Borger, KAA Champion Charlie Cummings, and others selling during the fun auction on Friday night.

KAA east regional bid-call contest contestants (from left to right) Lance Fullerton, Aaron Traffas, Dan Bales, Luke Hansen, John Kisner, Ty Mitchell; picture by Diane Poe

12:25
Leaving now for Abilene, Kansas, to the Kansas eastern region bid-call contest. This is our first event with CoverItLive, so we’ll see how it works! More within the hour!
1:24
Nearly to the fairgrounds. 7 contestants to compete. I’ll post a roster when I get there.

Aaron Traffas, CAI, ATS, CES

1:28
90 degrees today. Going to be hot in the suit.

1:55
Lance Fullerton, John Kisner, myself and three other contestants. One no-show…looks like six total.

2:20
Ron Shivers selling chainsaw art pieces. Contest will begin soon.

2:31
Ty Mitchell starting as contestant 1.

2:35
Luke Hansen from Beloit selling second now.

2:39
third to sell is Dan Bales from Garden City.

2:39
I’m going forth. Here we go!

2:49
I just finished…feel ok about it.

John Kisner

2:49
Lance Fullerton now selling fifth.

2:52
Final contestant is John Kisner, selling sixth.

2:54
The PA system here in the barn is pretty aweful, but the simplified scoring system and lack of a finals round means we should have results soon!

2:58
Three judges are all from KAA hall of fame.

3:14
Final places: Lance Fullerton champion, John Kisner reserve champion.

As we were searching for the links for our coverage of the KAA Winter Convention, we were surprised by the almost-complete lack of designations listed with each auctioneer on his or her respective staff pages. While it’s possible that all of the auctioneers for whom we were searching simply didn’t have any designations, we think it’s more likely that those auctioneers who had designations simply didn’t have them listed. Listing an auctioneer’s designations next to his name on every piece of marketing material as well as the website is an important pieces of a holistic institutional marketing campaign.

While many auctioneers use the basic education found at an auction school and are happy conducting business indefinitely based solely on those fundamentals, more and more auctioneers are realizing the importance of continuing education to ensure that their businesses are using modern business practices.

There are currently seven professional designation courses offered by the National Auctioneers Association institute. These designations prove to prospective buyers and sellers that an auctioneer has continued to learn and improve his processes.

CAI – Certified Auctioneers Institute

AARE- Accredited Auctioneer Real Estate

ATS – Auction Technology Specialist

BAS – Benefit Auction Specialist

CES – Certified Estate Specialist

GPPA- Graduate Personal Property Appraiser

MPPA – Master Personal Property Appraiser

We covered the new ATS designation back in November. We’ll be covering each of the remaining designations in the next couple of months, concluding with an article on CAI in March.

Bob McBride addresses the KAA

Held this year from January 22 through January 25 at the Broadview Hotel in Wichita, the 53rd Annual Kansas Auctioneers Association Winter Convention featured entertainment and education. AuctioneerTech had the good fortune to be able to cover it.

Education

Dwayne Leslie from Global Auction Guide

Dwayne Leslie from Canada-based Global Auction Guide Media Group did an excellent job presenting an Internet marketing class. He covered many of the basics on which we harp regularly here at AuctioneerTech, such as don’t use PDFs, stay away from Flash for splash and navigation, and keep your website simple and light for dial-up users. It was thoroughly enjoyable and right on the money.

Monty Lowderman from Lowderman Auction

Monty Lowderman with Lowderman Auction Company and Williams and Williams spoke Saturday morning as well as Saturday afternoon and did a fine job. His morning course described how to be a professional auctioneer living a fast-paced lifestyle. The afternoon course covered the auction method and the reasons to use it and how best to use it.

Other educational courses offered included real estate courses by Dave Goscha from the Lowry School of Real Estate on Friday and Joe Calhoon on Saturday.

Entertainment

Mayor Carl Brewer addresses the KAA

Thursday was the first KAA Livestock Bid Call Contest held at the El Dorado Livestock Auction. Charlie Cummings is the first champion.

Friday night’s banquet featured a welcome by Wichita’s mayor, Carl Brewer, a solid meal, the St. Jude’s benefit auction event and a performance by the Walnut River String Band.

Walnut River String Band performs for KAA

Saturday night’s Awards and Honors Banquet found auctioneers Marvin Knopp and John Shoemaker inducted to the Kansas Auctioneers Association Hall of Fame. Richard Garvin was awarded the Presidential Award of Distinction. Scholarships were given to Adam Pounds, Callie McCaffrey and Logan Fullerton. Following the banquet was the fun auction, where any auctioneer can sell a few items he or she brought or any of the many gift certificates or other donations from the many vendor sponsors.

Sunday’s luncheon finale featured a nice meal and the introduction of officers for both the KAA and the KAA Auxillary.

Business

2009 officers and directors

The new directors for the term beginning 2009 are Eric Bloomquist, Byron Bina and the first lady ever to be elected to the Kansas Auctioneers Association Board of Directors, Megan McCurdy. The new Vice President of the KAA is Jack Newcom. The new President-elect for 2009 is Andy Conser, CAGA, AARE. Dave Webb became the new President of the KAA.

The KAA business meeting, in full parlimentary style, was conducted by 2008 President Bob McBride. 2009 President Dave Webb adjuourned the meeting.

I recently took part in the Kansas Auctioneers Association bid-call contest at the Kansas State Fair. This was my third time competing, having also done so in 2002 and 2006. I’ve also seen other contests, such as the National Auctioneers Association International Auctioneer Championship and the Oklahoma State Auctioneers Association competition.

The NAA IAC this year used a computerized scoring system, with a computer for each judge and a large display that showed the leaderboard. As a contestant finished and left the stage, the display would update before the next contestant began, showing the score as well as the new ranking. A boo or cheer from the crowd would usually accompany both the addition of new leaders as well as the departure of previous leaders from the rankings who were liked by the crowd.

The challenges faced by the local auction contests are many. Kansas, for example, uses paper score sheets from each of its – this year – five judges. These sheets must be tabulated by hand for each contestant, so after each round of the competition, there is a delay between the last contestant and the announcement of the rankings as someone uses a calculator at a breakneck pace. This manual tabulation begs – nay, demands – errors to be made at some point. I know that last year a friend of mine added the scores on his sheets and came up with a number 65 points greater than the sum total written and circled on the top sheet of his stack that was used when ranking the finalists.

Another challenge is always one of politics. With many associations choosing judges from within their ranks, losing contestants seem always to be found grumbling after the awards have been distributed about how political or preferential the judging was that particular year.

How can these challenges be overcome? Unfortunately, I don’t expect that they will be any time soon. The old guard in charge of many of the associations may see a different way as a more difficult or arduous way, even if a different way may actually be easier, faster and fairer.

I’m sure that not every local contest has the budget for change. In fact, I’d wager that the local contests have little if any budget at all, relying on donations for the items sold or mandating that the contestants themselves bring three items. This latter procedure makes the contest even more unfair, affording some more affluent auctioneers the luxury of bringing more expensive items to sell and sounding better for achieving a higher price. I know that I’ve been in contests when I didn’t have much disposable income and was forced to sell things I already owned as I watched others go buy new items to sell.

I’m sure that the software system used by the NAA is expensive. I’m not advocating its use, nor am I advocating the distribution of computers to each judge. I believe a system can be devised that would require only Internet access. This access is already available for those auction contests held at conventions in hotels. For contests held at the outdoor events and fairs, it would merely be something to require from the event staff.

The software part is the easy part. Something as simple as Google Spreadsheets could be used, with each judge sharing the spreadsheet with the scorekeeper so that each judge didn’t have access to the scores of others, but that the scorekeeper or person in charge of tabulation could see the scores from all the judges. As simple as the requirements are, it would be feasible to have a system custom made using www.rentacoder.com that was tailor-made to the association’s requirements and judging criteria. Such a web-based solution could be built in four or five hours. Either Google Spreadsheets or the custom solution would allow for rapid tabulation. From a contestant’s point of view, being able to take a print-out of the performance scores would be an invaluable resource to reflect on how to be better in the future while the performance is still in recent memory.

One added benefit to such a system would be that it would require the rules and procedures to be thought-out and dictated ahead of the competition. It would not allow for late-in-the-game rule changes made after the contest had started as happened in Kansas this year.

Requiring the judges to bring their own laptops would solve the computer problem. The Internet access, should it be deemed too expensive or not possible by the event staff at an outdoor event, could easily be provided through the use of a wireless cell router. Many models are now being sold directly by the wireless carriers.

Finally, using foreign judges, judges who are not a member of the local association holding the contest, would reduce the propensity for contestants to hold questions about the political nature of the scores. The only thing bigger than an auctioneer’s voice is his ego, and being asked to judge a competition in another state would be seen my most as a compliment. The use of one or two non-auctioneer judges would also be something worth consideration, as I often wonder if judges reward the contestants who sound like them or their ideal auctioneer sound and discount those contestants who many not sound ideal but may perhaps annunciate better or have a clearer or faster chant.

I had a great time at the contest this year and I intend to compete in many more, both in Kansas and perhaps at the IAC. I think that by using electronic tabulation and foreign judges, as well as a predetermined and published set of rules that aren’t changed or determined after the competition starts, the local contests can be faster, smoother, easier and fairer.

Do you agree with me? Do I have it all wrong? Let me know in the comments.

UPDATE: This post is from the 2008 contest. View the recently-posted 2009 contest recap.

8:30am
Just passed Junction City, KS, on I-70 headed to the KAA bid-calling championship at the fair. I’ll be updating this post in real time today so long as I have a charge on my phone, so check back regularly.

Photo by Aaron Traffas

10:30am
I made it here to find Alan VanNahmen, Jeff Ruckert, Megan McCurdy and an auctioneer from northwest Kansas named Lance all loitering around waiting to draw for order. I’ll post an updated roster and the order after we draw.

11:00am
We 19 contestants have drawn our order and are waiting to interview. I drew number 6. I think it was really a 9 but peer pressure said otherwise.

11:50am
I’ve completed the interview portion. I’ll post the questions after everyone’s done. I feel solid about my performance. While we wait, here is the list of contestants in alphabetical order.

Photo by Aaron Traffas

Byron Bina – Herington
Eric Bloomquist – Assaria
Eric Boone – Yates Center
Charly Cummings – Yates Center
Kevin Ediger – Windom
Greg Foote – Bucyrus
Lance Kinderkneckt
John Kisner – Hays
Tom Lindsay – Shawnee
Megan McCurdy – Wichita
Aaron McKee – Manhattan
Ty Mitchell – Oxford
Dennis Oller – Turon
Jeff Ruckert – Manhattan
Glen Suppes – Lindsborg
Jayton Tautfest – Park City
Jeff Temme – Petersburg, NE
Aaron Traffas – Sharon
Alan VanNahmen – Manhattan

…more in a few minutes.

1:30pm
We’re milling around, perusing the merchandise, waiting for the contest to start at 2 p.m.

Photo by Debra Kisner

2:40pm
I just finished competing. now I wait to see if I make finals. There are some great auctioneers here, so it’s anyone’s guess.

3:46pm
I made finals…already sold again, better than first round…happening fast…results soon…

4:07pm
Here are your results.

1. Byron Bina
2. Aaron McKee
3. Megan McCurdy
4. Charlie Cummings
5. John Kisner

9:33pm
Fixed formatting

10:45pm
Added pictures