The results are in! 19 group members responded within 24 hours and rated 8 potential swag items on a scale from ⭐ to ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐. Let’s see what they voted.

Overall results

First, let’s take a look at the average rating per item. People gave many stars to the coffee mug, socks, notebook, and hat.

Distribution of votes

Next up, let’s look at the distribution of ratings per item. The coffee mug seems quite popular with only one person strongly opposed. Socks seem to be more polarizing; a pair of socks would make 8 people very happy and 4 people very unhappy. The hat and notebook scored more evenly across the spectrum with less fans but also less opposition than the socks.

Results split by academic level

All PhD students are big fans of the coffee mug. Maybe they all noted those nice OPIG cups on the desks of our postdocs? Postdocs as a group seem to be against clothing items as swag. They would rather see another coffee mug or a notebook. Too bad, because our professors displayed an all-or-nothing voting pattern in favour of clothing items.

Further ideas

Submissions for further items included mouse pads, t-shirts, nerf guns, and tea towels. Don’t we already do a tea towel as a viva gift?

And the winner is…

…to be decided. Definitely look forward to our next big group event on the 7th, ehm 8th of October!