TOOBORAC resident Dr David Barton has been elected president of the Prospectors and Miners Association of Victoria (PMAV) following its annual general meeting on October 24 in Eaglehawk, Bendigo.
The meeting was attended by 160 members from across Victoria and interstate, with the headline guest Nationals Member for East Gippsland Melina Bath.
Dr Barton was elected president after long-serving president Jason Cornish stepped down.
Dr Barton said he looks forward to working with whichever government gets elected later this month.
“Small-scale prospecting and mining for gold in Victoria has been increasingly restricted with the creation of more National Parks and other regulations. The PMAV looks forward to the November election and working with the new government, whoever it may be, to create better access for prospectors, miners and detectorists,” he said.
Dr Barton joins a list of predecessors which goes back to the PMAV’s formation in 1980 by the late Dr Doug Kemsely, with over 900 members and 120,000 Miners Right holders in Victoria.
Also on the committee this year is Heathcote’s Rex Motton, with 20 percent of the leadership crew at PMAV hailing from the Heathcote district.
The PMAV also has active branches in Ballarat, Bendigo, Geelong, Maryborough, Mitcham, Yackandandah, Stratford and Drouin.