The Ontario Exploration and Geoscience Symposium is pulling up stakes and heading north.
Future symposia, including the one scheduled for December 12 and 13, will be held in Sudbury, said Garry Clark, president of the Ontario Prospectors Association.
This year's event will be held at the Radisson Hotel in downtown Sudbury and will feature two days of presentations, an exhibit area, and an awards banquet.
The symposium theme, 'Open Minds, Open Mines,' is intended to draw attention to the successes resulting from new ways of looking at known deposits.
"People in the Sudbury Basin and in other camps have been finding things by thinking out of the box," said Clark. "They're looking at deposits differently, so we'll try to highlight some of these new ideas."
The banquet, to be held Dec. 12, will feature a guest speaker and the presentation of the OPA's Prospector Award for 2006.
The decision to relocate the symposium from Toronto to Sudbury was made to better serve the OPA's members and the exploration community generally, said Clark.
"We chose Toronto originally to target the investment community, but we never really had a big uptake."
Toronto was expensive and offered too many distractions, said Clark.
By holding the event in Sudbury, the OPA also hopes to attract more delegates from the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines and the Ontario Geological Survey.
Attendance, which has ranged from 300 to 360 for the past five years, could hit 400 in Sudbury, said Clark.
The symposium exhibit area will be open to the public from 3 pm to 5 pm both days.
Individuals and companies wishing to make a presentation or exhibit at the event should call the OPA at (807) 622-3284.
