Ann: Business and Fundraising Update-CL8.AX, page-23

Finally, after giving teasers every few months about entering new categories for the past 12-18 months we have entered the mining category. It was a coincidence that when i read the announcement this morning i was actually on my way to look at buying a loader for the farm. The place i went to was dealing in ex mining vehicles. He had everything from dozers to loaders to graders to excavators to trucks and everything in between both big and small. There must have been 50 odd machines in he's yards worth at a guess $5-7million. While we were there 2 trucks turned up with loaders he had brought that had come from wa, a trip of maybe 3000kms.

Now getting back on track to cl8's announcements re-mining equipment rental. It would be perfect being able to rent for a few months. At the moment we would use the loader quite a bit with cleaning up old fence line, pushing up some trees, gravel some roads, clean out dams etc but once this is done we have little use for it. Of course we can get contractors (which we do) to come in and do what we want but theres nothing worse than trying to keep them busy all the time and sometimes it isn't worth getting them to come out for a little job and other times they are too busy to get there. So for me it would be perfect to be able to hirer/rent one. We are still tossing up whether the outlay to buying one is going to be worth it for the few hundred hours work per year it will be doing with it. Im sure most farmers would be in a similar situation and if hiring was an option many would take advantage.