Results of my Gifts to my High School, "The Canford School," Fund Raiser

From: Karen Hartshorn 

Date: Sat, Oct 17, 2015 at 3:11 AM
Subject: Canford: Thank you and Advice Wanted
To: "grahamarader@gmail.com" <grahamarader@gmail.com>
Cc: Headmaster

Dear Graham,

I’m writing an overdue email to say thank you, once again, for your fantastic support of our art show and auction in September.  We had about 60 different works of art on show from OCs, parents, pupils and staff, and over 150 people coming in to look at everything.

In the end we decided to auction only some of the works in the live auction, as otherwise it would have taken far too long for the time we had.  We also thought we didn’t have the right profile of audience in attendance and we didn’t want to undersell.  I remembered your advice from April about making sure we had the right people there, in the right mood, to get the right price.

So, all the lovely pieces you sent were on display in the exhibition, and we chose to auction only the Redoute’s.  Given the audience we had and the amounts they were spending, we probably made less than you would have liked on the auction itself, but they were best-sellers on the day. I hope this is OK with you – they still represent a significant contribution to Canford and were admired by everyone who saw them (most notably the Headmaster, who I think bought two!).

I hope all else is well with you, and thank you once again for sending such a lovely selection of prints over to us. These plus your support of our trip in April have been hugely beneficial over the past year - hopefully we'll see you over here at some point soon to thank you again in person!

Warm regards,
Karen

Karen Hartshorn
Development Director

From: graham arader [mailto:grahamarader@gmail.com]
Sent: 17 October 2015 12:57
To: Karen Hartshorn <kxh@canford.com>
Subject: Re: Canford: Thank you and Advice Wanted

Thank you Karen

Your hard work on this project was impressive.  

To be honest my preference would be that you use my remaining gifts to decorate some room or rooms at the school.  But you have full discretion going forward.

Sorry to hear that the sale did not do very well.  With that being said, it still would be good to know how much in total was raised with the gifts that did come from me.  Kindly tell me that figure.

Very best wishes,

Graham

Dear Graham

Thanks for your email, nice to hear from you.  It was a lovely day, actually – all the ‘other’ bits of the day (the talk, the workshops, the exhibition, the lunch) were superb. We think if we ever have another charity auction we do need to make it in the evening after a very boozy dinner, rather than during the day. 

That said, we raised about £7,000 total from selling twelve pieces of art in the live auction. The Redoutes make up just under £2,500 of that total. £1,000 was spent on a commission for a painting by an OC artist, and two framed photographs taken by the actor Martin Clunes went for £1,500.  The other pieces sold went for between £150 and £350 each.  In all the proceeds from the auction mean that we can keep all four partnership trips (Ghana, Tanzania, India and Argentina) going for 2016, which is great news for Canford.

I’ve passed on this email to the Headmaster and Bursar, so that your preferences are known by them as well.  If it were up to me I’d certainly keep the remaining pieces for display at Canford, so I shall see what we can do there. 

Finally, I should let you know that I’m moving on from Canford in December.  I’ve accepted a promotion at another independent school (Pangbourne College in Berkshire) where I will be running their Development, Marketing and Admissions teams.  It’s a great opportunity for my career but I’m going to be sad to leave Canford. It’s such a lovely place, and in my five years here I’ve gotten to meet some absolutely brilliant characters. A highlight for me was our April trip to New York and getting to spend time in your gallery seeing some of your spectacular collection; thank you, again, so much for hosting us and spending time with us.  And dinner afterwards was brilliant too!  The new “me”, by the way, is a lovely lady named Rowena, who will be starting at Canford in January.

So, in case I don’t get to see you again it’s been an absolute privilege getting to meet you, and I will make sure that Ben and Rowena look after you properly if you make it to Canford in the near future!  I’m here until 4^th December.

Warm regards

Karen