Welcome Message from the Chair February 2026

Dear Hunter Region Branch members,

Happy New Year! I trust that your summer holidays afforded you some down time and an opportunity to catch up with your friends and family. 

2026 is gearing up to be an exciting one for our Branch. We have a number of excellent technical sessions planned across the year starting with an exciting event hosted in conjunction with Argus media that will delve into the current and future markets for thermal coal. The event will be held at Newcastle University on 11 March and I hope a lot of you can join us. 

As well as the upcoming Argus event, we have a Student Meets Industry (SMI) night in late February with our indefatigable Student Chapter at the helm. We also have planned a fun social night at the Grand Junction Hotel in Maitland in April. 

We also have visits to Orica’s Kooragang Island facility, and of course our Jameson Lecture later in the year as well as a number of new and exciting events for you to get involved with. 

If you have any interest in joining our committee, we are always happy to accommodate new members who wish to volunteer their time. In principle, it involves very little time: a monthly meeting of around one hour (usually online), attendance of events and perhaps some organisation of one of our events. We’d love to have you on board. Send through an email if you’re interested.

Welcome to any of our new members. We hope to see you and all members at an AusIMM event sometime soon.

Kind Regards,
Tim Baitch
Chair, AusIMM Hunter Region Branch