The auction represents a great and fun learning experience, especially for new members...and a great way for the club (and members) to raise money.
At least back in Sacramento (my old club), the monthly meeting auction items that drew the most competition and highest bids were the ones where people knew what they were bidding on and were excited about it. A guy (sorry I forget his name) gave a presentation on collecting fish in Papua New Guinea and showed picture of him collecting gudgeons. Bidding for babies of those gudgeons went sky high (vs. the collective shrug and strained $1 bid if a bag of 2 each 1" Tateurndina ocellicauda came up in the auction).
Nothing keeps people from bringing fish to club auctions more than consistently getting $1-2 for bags of fish that they could get $10-15 for at the LFS. It's just discouraging. Having excited and informed bidders keeps this from happening.
One way to provide a quick overview of the fish in the auction would be to have a rotating slide show on the overhead of a picture of the fish and some basic info. It would take a few minutes to build in PPT with a template and could be up and automatically flipping through during intermissions and the auction. It might even facilitate people to informally discuss experiences with a certain fish. As more and more profiles are created, we could post them to the web.
Here's an example of what the Chicago club does:
http://www.gcca.net/fom/Aulonocara_jacobfreibergi.htm ...which is more than what I think is necessary for the auction...[/b]