Jim
there is one point that may have been missed because of your narrow guidelines.
I submit chips to the club auction not necessarily to make a profit, although that is always nice. I do it to support the club and its treasury. Having been involved in charity and/or volunteer based organizations all of my life, I appreciate how difficult it can be to run an organization effectively and keep the dues low enough to retain membership. I have never heard of another organization that did not at leasdt have a nominal registration fee for its convention. Where there were not several fundraisers run during the year, etc. The auction is our major source of income other that dues and I will suppot it as long as I am a member. I agree with John Benedict that I would rather have an auction in which we would be allowed to have a minimum reserve poerhaps with an upfront fee that would be waived if the item was sold.
However to grow our organization I eblieve that we have to support what functions that they have when we can.

With that said although this was not your platform for the next election you may want to consider running for an elected office and bring about the changes that you seek.