About Us

The Sydney Mining Club meets every month except January on the first Thursday. Come to one event and you’re a member for life!

In the Beginning

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 of our underlying principles. To this day we endeavour to adhere to them:

• Being inclusive – come to one Mining Club event 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.
• Preparing 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.
• Limiting the formalities and introductions. Presenting with a tight lunchtime slot that gets you back to the office soon after 2.00 pm.

The Sydney Mining Club meets on the first Thursday of every month excluding January with alternate Lunchtime Forum and Leading Edge evening events.

So to join us as a member – please book in to an event! You may also request for us to add your colleagues to the email list by sending them to us at the ‘Contact Us’ section on the web site, or by forwarding an email making such a request from the individual.

Our stake in the ground

At the start of any great mineral project, some enterprising, and possibly lonely figure stands in the landscape and drives a stake into the ground. The claim is made.

The stake will eventually look like the one facing which was dug into the hardpan near Cloncurry, Queensland at the place where the great Ernest Henry copper-gold mine would later arise.
This particular stake went on to become vital evidence in the gripping Savage Resources vs Western Mining Corporation case. Savage, a Sydney enterprise, won a massive settlement and went on to great things and eventual takeover by Pasminco Ltd. Later this zinc giant went into receivership.

It was thought that the stake had been lost. Eventually it was recovered from the Museum of Queensland and relocated to the Tattersalls Club, the erstwhile home of the Sydney Mining Club. Thanks to the Tattersalls club for allowing us to mount this totem on their site. It is a totem not just to Jim Wall and John Gaskell who led Savage to victory, but to every one of Sydney’s enterprising mining souls – past, present and future.

As described by the 2003 Patron of the Sydney Mining Club, Prof Geoffrey Blainey, the prospector’s act of staking is ‘a statement of hope’. So too is our mounting of this stake. Let it not be forgotten.