King Edward Mine Museum all set to welcome 45 global teams to the 47th International Mining Games

King Edward Mine Museum (KEM) is proud to be hosting the 47th Intercollegiate International Mining Games (IMG) on Friday 21st and Saturday 22nd March 2025.

After two years of preparation and a huge effort by Camborne School of Mines (CSM) student organisers and KEM’s trustees and volunteers to create a safe and pleasant venue for this prestigious international occasion, the historic site is ready and waiting to receive the 45 teams from mining schools across the globe who will participate in this hotly contested competition.

Teams will arrive from Australia (Western Australia, Queensland, New South Wales), the USA (Missouri, Arizona, Montana, Nevada, Colorado, South Dakota), Canada (British Columbia) and Germany (Freiberg, Bochum).

Cornish teams include students and alumni from CSM who will be keen to defend their results from the 46th IMG held in Montana USA in 2024.

The competition consists of seven events:

· Jackleg Drilling – Drilling into vertical concrete with a Holmans 303 airleg drill

· Track Laying – Setting up and tearing down a section of track, including sleepers, rail, connecting plates and bolts

· Hand Mucking – Running a one-ton ore wagon down a 75” section of track and filling it

· Swede Saw – Sawing through a 6” x 6” piece of timber with a 36” bow saw

· Gold Panning – Finding five flattened ball bearings in a pan full of dirt and rock

· Hand Drilling – Drilling into concrete using a 3-4lb hammer and a 7-8” chisel

· Surveying – Reporting the coordinates of a finishing point from the starting point provided, using a vernier transit theodolite, which is a precision

instrument used to measure angles between points in the horizontal and vertical planes.

Competitors will arrive on Wednesday 19th March, Practice Day will be on Thursday 20th March, the Women's and Co-ed competition will take place on Friday 21st March, and the Men’s and Alumni competition will be staged on Saturday 22nd March, all between 8am and 4pm.

Whilst the Museum itself will be closed to the public during the Games and until it re-opens for the season on Sunday 20th April, spectators are invited to watch the competition from the safety of outdoor viewing areas, and plenty of parking is available in the Plantation Field.

The IMG brings a great deal of prestige to Cornwall as it attracts eminent organisations from across the global mining industry such as Gold sponsors, Barminco-Perenti, Cornish Metals, Padley & Venables and Vault Minerals; Copper sponsors, Aggregate Industries, Global Mine Design, Herrenknecht and Raptor Tech, and Tin sponsors, Deswik, as well as the CSM Trust, Springbok Drilling, Cambridge In Situ, JR Bowden Digger and MA Construction.

The IMG competition was established in 1978 to honour 91 miners who died in the Sunshine Mine disaster in the USA in 1972. It provides mining students with the chance to connect with the traditional mineral extraction methods of yesteryear as well as gain transferable skills and benefit from career development opportunities.

“KEM is delighted to host the IMG because it chimes with our twin aims of celebrating Cornwall’s mining industry in ways that increase knowledge and ignite curiosity among people of all ages and backgrounds, and of promoting education in geoscience, geology and mining,” explains KEM Trustee, Carol Richards.

“We would like to thank everyone who has sponsored the event for their generous support and the wonderful volunteers who have worked so hard to prepare the site for this illustrious event. We believe there is no better place to spark an interest in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) than in our museum at King Edward Mine, where we provide a unique opportunity to explore a variety of learning objectives within geoscience across primary, secondary and further education settings. Over the next five years, we will grow our engagement to include further STEM provision and the use of our site by Camborne School of Mines (part of the University of Exeter),” adds Carol.

On 19th June 2025, KEM will be welcoming Year 8 pupils from Cornish schools to take part in the 6th annual Cornwall Schools Mining Games (CSMG).

If you would like to volunteer to help at KEM, please visit https://www.kingedwardmine.co.uk/about/volunteering and complete the online form.

If you are planning to visit KEM as an IMG spectator, please visit https://www.kingedwardmine.co.uk/international-mining-games for all further information regarding parking arrangements, the exact location of each event and where to purchase refreshments.