I, like Lunch, found the SGR booth to be very quiet in more ways than one. Tim gave me the same reason why the Q4 numbers were not out, however I pressed for an explanation why it would be so difficult to write up one paragraph stating what they surely must know about total ounces. He said the company felt that a regular update really only benefits day traders and was low on their priority list repeating the importance of getting all of the capex numbers etc. correct before putting out any kind of release. My standard response to that was to point out how patient many of the long term shareholders have been with this company and we surely deserve to know what is going on in "OUR" mine and maybe that the problem they are having with the markets is that they need to learn the priority should always be the shareholders .

I asked about closing the RLM and if they felt they were in a position to make up those tons at he Hinge and 007. Comments by George Pirie at the conference call suggested that they felt it was possible and would know in a couple of weeks. Of course a couple months later and the SH's still do not know. It sounded like the main reasons for the closure was two fold. One being the ability to capitilize more of the developement costs and the other to control the flow of material up the A shaft. The 16 and 26 drifts are producing a lot of waste rock and the logistics of moving ore up the shaft without a conflict was causing delays and mixups. He also said that the more experienced miners were needed to do the developement work so it made no sense to keep mining this higher priced ore and they would get the cost per ounce down by utilizing the crew in a more efficient manner. I really got the feeling that they feel that the drifts will be the game changer. Not only for the access to the deeper extentions of the 007 and hinge, but the drill stations will allow a much more accurate mapping of the vein structure. He explained because of all the fracturing of rock layers often the drills get deflected off course giving an inaccurate reading on where the gold is. With the new drifts that can be seen in the presentation they will be right into the zones and the definition drilling will be much more accurate. Of couse exploration drilling below the existing kown veins will also be much more economical.

I did ask about Bill and my query as to why he quit was met with denial. He supposidly didn't actually up and quit, however is now more involved with the SGX geology work around edelson. I believe he said that Bill is a director and was more interested in the work over there. The new team in the core shack is very experienced and brings some Red lake experience to the exploration. I spent a lot of time there and in that time only one visiter came by and asked where they were exploring. Tim told him they were actually a producer which got the fellows attention and led to a few questions and a pick up of the broshures. Overall nothing they said would excite me to buy more shares, however nothing said would cause me to sell any at this time. This has always been for the long term and even if they are struggling to keep this ship in the right direction it wouldn't take much of a rise in the POG to make this a cash rich junior. I bought this as a leveraged play on the price of gold and unless I need cash to buy something else that I simply must have, I feel I can stomach another year of misery.