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They're almost always universally awful, aren't they? A drawer full of old, unused memory sticks (from when they were the thing!) then a load of really average USB battery doodahs.
However, at a pretty big paperclip convention last week ( 😎 ) one of the freebies was a Yeti Rambler mug.
Should have grabbed more than one!
Anyone else ever had any genuinely good conference/meeting swag?
At the last Bilderberg, I snagged a whole cage full of Krispy-Kreme guinea pigs.
Delicious.
Donald was being a knob as usual though.
Hope you did the right thing with it.
?
Got given a Google Home at a conference recently. You did have to sit through 15 minutes of “speed dating for CIOs” where each vendor gets to try and sell you shit but was well worth it. Other freebies included a leather wallet and a really rubbish mini drone.
Fake news Perchy. So sad.
Favourite to date - S'well bottle
I clearly move in different circles.
half of the conferences I go to we have to take our own lunch 😭
Had a few desktop models of various aircraft etc. Best ever was Leatherman multitool, left it in my hand luggage though and ended up leaving it at the airport.
Not quite the same, but I was recently amused by a bunch of graduates who went to their "onboarding" week as part of their grad programme for one of my clients.
It just so happened that one of the big 4 accountancy companies was doing the same thing at the same time in the same location, and their guys were walking out of their induction with Mac book airs.
Our guys got a stress toy and a keyring.
I (barely) mention it every time I see them.
My best score was/is an aluminium bottle opener which is lovely. Says "Labatts" which kinda dates it!
There was a vendor prize draw at the conference I was at yesterday, I walked away with a ~£200 set of noise cancelling Bluetooth headphones. Was deliberating eBaying them straight away, but having spent the evening listening to various different styles of music through them just to see what they're like, I think I'm keeping them...
Company policy on perks is "not a pencil, not a coffee". Harsh but fair.
It just so happened that one of the big 4 accountancy companies was doing the same thing at the same time in the same location, and their guys were walking out of their induction with Mac book airs.
It's not really that unusual to use an induction (graduate or otherwise) to issue out company laptops and phones. I work for one of the big IT consultancies and we do exactly the same, although you do need to have joined one of the more forward-looking business units to get issued with anything other than a basic Dell.
I was a speaker at one conference and got a half decent wine bottle opening set - foil cutter, corkscrew etc. Still got it somewhere in the kitchen draws..
I got one like CFH's, except its the BMW version. It has a BMW "button" in the middle which opens/closes the drinking aperture to avoid spills. Things is, I feel a bit pretentious/embarassed/Alan Partridge about getting out of by BMW with my BMW coffee mug and asking for it to be used at Starbucks, so haven't.
Bit different but at a graduate recruitment fair I got a simple keyring bottle opener from Agilent Technologies.
Still got it 18yrs later on my door keys. I dread to think how many bottles it's opened, but it has frequently saved the day at parties and camping trips.
Earlier this year I came back from a engineering expo with over 20 pens (we had a competition going), couple of USB sticks, car air freshener, battery stick, Bluetooth key finder, thermal mug and a small laser cut bicycle.
Nice pair of earbuds. I’d been looking for a cheap pair for the train journey the day before, after I’d left home without 🙂
At one of our end of year sales conferences ( music / entertainment) going back to when cassettes were more popular than CD's & videos more popular than dvd's....the head of Sony Sales (UK ) gave us all a goody bag in which was the latest Sony Walkman ..
Nice !
Not conference swag, but we get prizes for the best tip top safety stop/obsevations/innovations. It's not difficult to turn the wording of something mundane into a "Lucky we didn't all die!" situation.
A JBL Clip+ Bluetooth speaker - use it in the shower, and actually sounds half decent.
SureFire Tactical torch - Scarily bright thing.
Yeti Mugs too, but massive 'Mericun! sized versions - takes about a litre to fill one.
Various T-shirts and caps - all crap.
I do hope you all declared this stuff as taxable benefits 😉
<h2 id="certain-gifts">Certain gifts</h2>
Certain gifts from third parties if all these conditions are satisfied the:
- gift consists of goods or a voucher or token only capable of being used to obtain goods
- person making the gift is not your employer or a person connected with your employer
- gift is not made either in recognition of the performance of particular services in the course of your employment or in anticipation of particular services which are to be performed
- gift has not been directly or indirectly procured by your employer or by a person connected with your employer
- gift cost the donor £250 or less
- total cost of all gifts made by the same donor to you, or to members of your family or household, during the tax year is £250 or less
unlikely to be taxable
We give these pens out lasered with our logo, people come back to the stand to swipe more.
https://www.findmeagift.co.uk/gifts/tech-tool-pen.html
Don’t cost us anything like that much though.
I once got a Psion5 (but it got nicked)
I did a presentation on it, did some finance stuff on it, printed it all out and presented it to the Board.
I really miss that little piece of tech, even to this day.
We give these pens out lasered with our logo, people come back to the stand to swipe more.
https://www.findmeagift.co.uk/gifts/tech-tool-pen.html
/a>Don’t cost us anything like that much though
The problem with this is that you can't buy a refill for them. I got given one a while back, and once the ink runs out it's done, refills cost a stupid amount. I've have loved to keep using it, but it's not much use without ink!
You can get refills. I’ve got a bunch in my desk.
A small packet of treat size Starmix haribos.
and a Tractor shaped pencil sharpener...cool hey!
Coke and Hookers!!
Boy I miss those ecclesiastical conferences 🙂
My most used swag? A pair of "Service Now" socks.
We got our choice of Plantronics + Jabra headset/headphones at an internal event, one of each. It's marketing for them, as I talk about how ace the Plantronics one is.
Various water bottles and a couple of cheap re-usable coffee cups.
Used to be helicopter rides and girls in motel rooms. Now it's pens and mouse mats. Damn you, political correctness.
Other way round but my brother sometimes does light and sound for conferences and always comes away with a van full of leftovers. He brought me 7 cases of Greens gluten free beer one time, legend!
If you're gf look at Peroni, Tennents and Innis & Gunn. Not certified gf, but they are. The gf Tennents is the same stuff in a fancier bottle
Not sure about that one actually, the GF tennents tastes nicer imo, it seems a higher grade of cat piss. Coors Light is another gf-friendly-but-not-gf. But tbh I feel a bit more worthy when I drink labelled GF, and less guilty when I go to my outpatients clinic, been mostly on the old speckled hen and peroni gfs lately.
However the tastiest beer is the free stuff from my brother's van.
A Spudz cleaning cloth.
not a coffee
Too harsh.
We used to get furry microbe toys (or rather Mrs g-d did). Apparently quite common at medical conferences a while back.
We definitely had the one that's a common stomach bug and a few others.
Too harsh
Indeed. Some companies have gone completely batshitmental over gifts, travel and expenses. A total misreading of things like the Bribery Act. Nothing wrong with a branded freebie, a coffee or decent lunch over a meeting etc. First class flights for you and your family to Barbados? Lots wrong.
Just common sense really.
I've also found recently that the interpretation of "government official" can be extended to cover a very broad range of personnel.