[Sean Williams]

Sadly the situation with volunteers has been ongoing for many years now - I used to be a regular attendee/helper, but if you factor in a whole weekend, 200 mile round trip, and overnight accomodation/meals, then it ceases to be a voluntary effort, and is actually an expensive weekend away.

There is a finite number of people that are happy to do this sort of thing, I think it is fair to say that the resource has been depleted.

It is quite disheartening to lay out a 400+ lot auction, with lots arriving at sporadic times from 10 am on a Saturday, right through to 1pm on the day of the sale, only to end the sale with a number of unsold lots, and no sight of anyone to take them away.

I've tried many times to limit the size of sales, and to stop the last minute entering of extra lots on the day.

I think in this case however, the number of sales throughout the year was what finally did it for me - 10+ auctions in a year is far too many, and only serves to introduce people selling stuff that is really not worth the minimum bid.

I think the BVWS sales at least offer to reimburse expenses for those that are good enough to offer their time freely.