Today was the first day of the CIM exhibition and there was a large turnout of exhibitors even if, like the SME in February, the hall sometimes felt a little empty of delegates.






Still it was nice to catch up with a few familiar faces, this photo shows Alex Montgomery of Starkey & Associates with Hans von Michealis.





What struck me most at this conference was not the number of attending exhibitors but the familiar names that weren't exhibiting. In the tough times that we are presently going through I would have thought that most companies would want to send at least a skeleton staff just to show that they are still around.




David Almond from FLSmidth Minerals

The other thing that left me perplexed was that there was a sponsored lunch in the exhibition hall that I was asked to pay $20 for! Needless to say, the hot-dog van outside the venue seemed to be doing a very good trade!




Carsten Gerold from Loesche GmbH


The exhibition however had a nice relaxed atmosphere and there was evidently a lot of networking taking place. Nowhere more so than around the South Australia stand who were handing out wine for the price of a business card. WorleyParsons did well to have their stand next door!




Chris Webb of WorleyParsons