Hour long lines of University students filled the Rebecca Stafford Student Center (RSSC) on Wednesday, September 11, from 1 – 4 pm waiting to get their hands on a personalized street sign hosted by the Student Activities Board (SAB) with their novelty event.
This SAB novelty was open and free for all students to attend to make any sign with any personalization that they wanted displayed.
The SAB paid for and brought a representative from a personalized sign making company to come to the University to host this event through their novelty budget. They had found the company at last year’s National Association of Campus Activities (NACA) in Nashville, Tennessee and booked them immediately at the NACA marketplace.
The process for the sign making was pretty simple and took only minutes to complete. The students were instructed to pick a metal sign, choosing from a green street sign, yellow caution sign, or car license plate. They then wrote down what personalized messaged they wanted on the sign.
After deciding the specific personalization, a machine then printed out the letters and the SAB event members then peeled them out, stuck them to the corresponding sign, and handed the sign to the student to use as decoration in their dorm room.
Some signs that students created included the phrases “Jersey Girl Blvd”, “StuDYING Apt3”, and “Caution Queens Ahead.”
The SAB novelty event was ran by newly inducted Novelty Chair Executive Board Member and sophomore, Taylor Carson. Carson stated, “I was so nervous about this being my first SAB event, but I had a very helpful and supportive team that guided me along my event.” Carson was more than pleased with the response of the student population to the event.
“I was very happy with the outcome – SAB usually always has a good turnout when it comes to giving away free items. Who wouldn’t want cool stuff for free? The word ‘free’ screams to college students on a budget,” giggled Carson.
At approximately 3:30 pm SAB had ran out of signs with still an enormous line of University students waiting. The event was intended to run until 4 pm.
SAB also tried a new marketing campaign at the event: “Come get your #SABswag.”
“The hashtag #SABswag is going to be used for every novelty event for the rest of the year,” said SAB President Ashley Bamonte. “We are trying to drive more people to our events by using social media, like Twitter. The first 20 students that retweet our #SABSwag tweet from our @Monmouth_SAB get a VIP pass to cut the line for any novelty event,” she said.
The chosen winners will be guaranteed that they take home a free item. At novelty events there is a limited quantity of free goods to distribute to students. It is based on a first come, first serve basis.
SAB finds the novelty events to be the most attended, especially around the holidays. Junior Ashley Episcopo attended the event and created two signs.
Episcopo said, “I made two signs – one for myself and one for my boyfriend… Novelty items are a great gift for family members, friends, and loved ones.”
Megan McGowan, Assistant Director of Student Activities and Student Center Operations, said, “#SABswag events are pop up events that are great opportunities for commuter students to stop by between classes and get a better sense of what SAB events are like. Hopefully, the conversations that they have with the students running the event will encourage them to come back for the weekend and evening events and really get involved with campus programming.”
This was one of three novelty events to take place on campus this semester. There will be one towards the end of October and another in the beginning of December.
PHOTO COURTESY of Christine Olivo
