The newly appointed executive for the forthcoming year are John Rowland, president; Jason Wagstaffe, secretary; and Dave Benson, treasurer.

Wagstaffe, regional ventilation officer for Powercoal's Central Coast mines, presented a paper on the installation of staple shafts at Powercoal's Wyee Colliery. Wagstaffe spoke about the difficulties faced in today's mining practice with the use of explosives on a large scale for staple shafts, becoming more difficult and more expensive. Due to the increasing difficulties faced by mine operators with using explosives raise boring technology was considered.

Initially the project was to have uphole reaming technology used with a large amount of R&D to be performed by the contractors, Raisebore Australia. In the end both uphole and back reaming technology was used with 4 x 1.44m dia staple shafts installed. (See larger article

Dave Benson, technical services manager and ventilation officer for Westcliff colliery, spoke on the installation of booster fans at Westcliff Colliery. Expanding on an article recently printed in Australia’s Longwalls, Benson pointed out the ground breaking work performed by the staff of the BHP Billiton owned mine to use booster fans in today's environment. It is a technology embraced readily overseas especially in Europe but looked upon, negatively at times, as not being an option for Australia's underground coal mines.

In related ventilation news, professor Roy Moreby of the National Mine Ventilation Centre at the University of NSW has delivered complete modules in the subjects of Ventilation and Mine Services, and Heat and Moisture. These modules will be delivered to third year mining engineering students from first semester 2002.