Only time will tell which board was better equipped to operate...

Only time will tell which board was better equipped to operate the mine. There have been a lot of accusations and personal assertions made over the last couple of months by a number of stakeholders.

I guess this is one of those things we will have to watch play out...

If there was one thing that I am disappointed about it is that we've had 4 boards members who collectively held around 40M shares (as of the last annual report which is roughly 7 - 8% of the company) to having three new board members appointed who collectively own 650k (ie they collectively own... 0.08%).

This concerns me A LOT!

In life I've learned to always be wary of those not willing to put their own skin the game. I'm not saying there aren't exceptions to this rule, but in general - it usually a VERY bad sign.

I'd rather have a directors that believe in the company and its potential and stands to be a very large beneficiary of its success than directors who think none of his (hopefully) hard earned money is worth being invested in the company he's managing (and I'm not saying that all of the previous directors shares were obtained the "hard earned" way - ie it's my understanding that some were obtained via stock options and bonuses).

To me at this stage either the directors or the current shareholders are incompetent, we just can't be sure who yet.

Either the directors are indeed "much more qualified" or they are not.

If they are more qualified, then not already having a decent shareholding means that the current shareholders are incompetent at valuing a gold mining company because even the directors don't think its worth buying at current prices.

OR

The shareholders are more qualified at calculating the potential intrinsic value of the gold mining company, which means the directors must be incompetent to not be buying up shares in this company which they themselves are running and should know more about...

As an existing shareholder that owns more shares in this company than all three of the new directors combine both outcomes are extremely sub-optimal.

Let's see if the new directors are just planning to milk the company and some bonus stock options with a ridiculously low strike price or if they are willing to put their own capital at risk by buying shares of the company on market (like the rest of us have done)...

Their actions over the next 3 - 6 months will say A LOT about the caliber of directors we have inherited.

I'm hoping we've managed to obtain more than just a couple of mining engineers for the board. I'm hoping we've also obtained some high integrity company focused directors who are planning to put their own capital to work in the company they now manage VERY soon.

Time will tell.

Doubt it.