Sydney Mining Club

The first Sydney Mining Club forum was held in March 1997. The speaker was Peter Robinson who talked about the recent takeovers of Pancon and Cudgeon by his company Renison Consolidated Goldfields. Attending this inaugural event were 50 people. In February 2004 when we hosted Robert Friedland for our 72nd forum we (regretfully) turned away more than twice that number from a packed venue.The initial impetus for the formation of the Sydney club was discontent in the mining community with many aspects of the professional institutes and most of all with their ability to bring people together. Our activism led to the first changes to the constitution of the largest Institute in more than a century. But we were keen not to be seen purely as critics. So we started the Sydney Mining Club to fill at least one of the holes that we had been pointing to.In our modest beginnings we didn’t quite realize the strength of some underlying principles. These are:Be inclusive – come to one Mining Club forum and you are ‘a member’ for life. In practice it means you are permanently added to our email list and are not required to pay any membership fee or perform any formality.Include the media as our guests.Avoid droning and technical presenters. Prepare speakers to take a lively ‘current affairs’ outlook to their story and to give something of a beachhead presentation about their company growth, their passions, rocks, riches and the big picture behind their work.Limit the formalities and introductions. Present with a tight lunchtime slot that gets you back to the office soon after 2.00 pm.Remind the members that they own the club and try to reflect their sentiments in the Club’s running.We’ve helped our friends at the Melbourne Mining Club and Brisbane Mining Club to adapt this platform to suit the moulds of those great mining centres.The Sydney Mining Club meets on the first Thursday of every month.