GAIN Communications

After the Cape Town meeting in 2016, an approximately twice-yearly newsletter was initiated, edited by Jim O’Brien, so that GAIN members could keep in touch between the biennial meetings. These newsletters also enabled the GAIN news to be disseminated even more globally, which has in itself attracted more countries to participate in GAIN. These printed-format newsletters were discontinued as of 2020 as members then came into much more frequent contact via video-conferencing.

Since 2020, there have been 22 video conference calls. Each call is of approx 1.25 hours, with typically 16-20 people attending, the calls kindly hosted by Aggregates Europe-UEPG. The specific topic of each call is combined with some “friendly chat”, documented with meeting notes within a few days. Time zones dictate balance between early (5am in Alberta, Canada to 11pm in Wellington, New Zealand, truly spanning the globe!

The wide-ranging topics covered in these call have included:

• COVID safe working protocols

• Challenging COVID lockdowns

• Best practice in river extraction

• Curtailing illegal sand extraction

• Production data and trends

• Recycling

• Sustainability Targets

• Skills Development/Training (IQ)

• Resource planning, permitting

• Supply Chain Challenges

• Water Management

• Air Quality Management

For the latest GAIN news, you are very welcome to contact Jim O’Brien at jim.obrien.csr@gmail.com