Freebies and MORE!

Today was the DCU School of Biotechnology Research Day. I woke up a bit early to go start my HPLC run and then went over to where the Research Day was to be held, to register and put up my poster, before proceeding to hear the presentations. But more about the actual research day in my research blog probably later on. So where do the freebies come in? Well, as part of the research day a number of suppliers were sponsors and they came with their stands…and more importantly FREEBIES. I never saw such an array of freebies on offer. Apart from the usual mugs, notepads, pens and pencils there were USB pens looking like playmobil toys, travel mugs, clocks, mobile phone holders, calendars, different forms and styles of notepads. All the stationery needs you can imagine and more. My favourite freebie…which I had to ask for myself as it was not actually a freebie I guess…a Sigma Aldrich Chemical Bottle (We buy lots of chemicals from Sigma, who have typical chemical bottles…but instead of having sodium hydroxide, or something of the sort, it says Assorted Swiss chocolates. It has hazard notices on it, and once you open it, it is full of Lindt chocolates…they were there for all participants to take chocolates, but I asked for an empty bottle (I want to use it as a pencil holder) and got a full one instead 🙂 WEEEEEEEE. Another good freebie was a really nice bag from Fisher 🙂 It will certainly be the bag of choice for most of us students to go grocery shopping for some time.

What was good about the Research Day was that we had to go to all the different suppliers, to get a stamp from each supplier (there were 13), which would entitle us to a draw to win €100 or €50. We still do not know who won the draw, due to a gas alarm going off just as the research day ended and the wine reception and prize giving started. We managed to get the wine reception shifted (most people just got out a couple of wine bottles and so on, but the raffle box remained behind). Well what I liked about it was that we had to go meet up with all the suppliers and talk to them. This made for some really good contact making.

Bring on the freebies and the next research day…:)