O Week is perhaps the greatest time of the year for giveaways. Reporter Jono Edwards sniffs out the best freebies at tent city.
One constant in university life is Christian groups always have the best O Week giveaways.
Student Life staff member Cam Mackenzie, standing outside the university entrance opposite the Otago Museum, said the group could certainly back up that claim with its trademark jandals.
"I’d rate us as one of the best freebies.
"I had a guy come yesterday wanting new jandals because the ones he got last year were worn from him wearing them every day for a year."
The group distributed 1800 in the past two days, Mr Mackenzie said, and he was still sporting his yesterday, despite rain pelting the shelter above him.
"We’re Dunedin scarfies. We don’t worry about that."
Not to be outdone, the Otago Combined Christian Groups served free breakfasts on the museum lawn among the cluster of stalls.
Options included cornflakes and Weet-Bix Bites among others, with regular or soy milk, all served with a healthy spoonful of salvation.
The Otago University Students’ Association had a small assortment of lollies, sauce sachets and soup mixes.
However, they insisted the association would be offering a range of other freebies throughout the week.
The New Zealand Blood Service tent was not just gambling on good intentions to attract donors.
Southern donor recruitment team leader Ali Keast was offering "blood dude" plush toy mascots, rub-on tattoos and, not for the squeamish, pens which looked like blood-filled syringes.
Curiously located next door was the Whakamana Cannabis Museum tent.
This acted as a timely reminder the blood service does not want blood contaminated with marijuana.
The museum was devoid of giveaways, but volunteer Jack Ford said their freebie was "education".
The Otago Museum stall had the usual array of jellybeans and other lollies, but stood out because of its offering of the wonder of science.
Museum science and education communicator Nick Yeats added -78degC dry ice to boiling water to create a flurry of fog.
"I call it a storm in a bucket. It’s an exaggerated version of what happens when the warm air of the tropics and cold air from Antarctica mix."
Through the university, Jessica Ford was distributing feminine hygiene products.
Given their usual high cost and their necessity, they were "definitely" the best freebies at tent city, she said.
"Yesterday two girls took two whole packs."
There was contention between the two major political groups on the lawn.
The only offering at the Labour tent for Health Minister David Clark was a humble pen.
But according to them, it was the "best pen on campus".
Volunteer Teia Wallace said she got hers a year ago and it still worked.
"We’ve had people coming up saying, please I need another one of those pens."
At the Young Nats tent, southern chairman Vivian Griffiths said the group "certainly had more variety" than the Labour tent, with its blue jellybeans, bottle openers and pens of their own.
Students could also win prizes by playing a steady hand game in which contestants tried to increase the party’s poll numbers from "45% to 50%".
The group refused to acknowledge this week’s 1 News Colmar Brunton poll which had the party at 43%.