Over the weekend of August 9 and 10, a total of 152 people visited Stawell Gold Mines as a part of the company's community engagement initiatives.

Visitors came mostly from Stawell and district with visitors also from Horsham, Warracknabeal, Bendigo and Melbourne attending.

Stawell Gold Mines original intention was to hold their annual Open Day on August 9, to invite 80 visitors to take a tour of the mine site.

After just one week of advertising, all of the available places had already been snapped up.

With still four weeks to go until the open day the decision was made to make the Stawell Gold Mine Open Day into an Open Weekend. This allowed SGM to open up another 80 places to visitors interested in coming to take a tour of the mine site.

Each tour group started with an introductory presentation from Troy Cole, the general manager of Stawell Gold Mines. This was followed by an update on the current exploration activities and a tour of the processing plant and tailings dam facilities.

Visitors were also offered the chance to go underground and see an air leg drill and jumbo drill rig in action. All of this was followed up by the grand finale, the pouring of a gold bar weighing around 22 kilograms.

The response from visitors was overwhelmingly positive. Many were astounded at the complex process and equipment required to extract the gold from the ore.

There was also a strong interest shown in current exploration activities, rehabilitation works and the operations of the processing plant and tailings dam.

Stawell Gold Mines is the only operational truck haul decline gold mine in Victoria which offers underground tours on its Open Days so the underground component of the tour also presented a unique opportunity to visitors.

Open Day is held annually at the Stawell Gold Mine and will be held again in 2009 in late July or early August.