Golden Bay A&P Show

Grants And Sponsors

Abel Tasman Plumbing & Gas, Alliance Plumbing, ANZ Bank Comm & Agri, Bay Takeaway, Choco Loco, Clive Bird, Dangerous Kitchen, De-Lish Delicatessen, Department of Conservation, Drummond & Etheridge, Duncan McKenzie Livestock, Earth Gems, Earth Gems Flowers & Garden, Farewell Spit Eco Tours, Finlayson Bros, Forest & Bird Golden Bay, FreshChoice Takaka, Golden Bay Canine Boarding Kennels, Golden Bay First National, Golden Bay Garden Group, Golden Bay Hammer Hardware, Golden Bay Holiday Park, Golden Bay Patchwork & Quilters Guild, Goodness to Go, Grant Knowles, Gunsboro Ltd, HealthPost NZ, Jean Wedderburn, Kim Gardiner, Laser Electrical, Living Light Candles, Lonestar Farms, Luca Borrelli Painting, Mariposa, Mike Greer Homes, Milnes Beatson Accountants, Mobile Mechanical, Mohua Motels, Morley Motorcycles, Mrs Ivy Radford Memorial, Mrs Mary Papps Memorial, Mrs Noleen Reilly, Mrs Pat Hayter Memorial, Orange Mechanical, Pipeworx, Pohara Beach Top 10 Holiday Park, Pohutukawa Gallery, Pupu Valley Farms, Ravensdown, Ray White Golden Bay Billy Kerrisk, Richmond Saddlery, Unlimited Copies, Roger and Shirley Rosser, Rural Service Centre, Rural Women Golden Bay Provincial, Skeet Barnett, Sue Hitchcock, Takaka Concrete Products, Take Note, Telegraph Hotel, The Wholemeal Café, Tina Delceg, Viewtop Valley Farms Jo Pomeroy, Waitapu Engineering, Warn & Associates, WinField Farm.

THANK YOU ALSO TO THE MANY PEOPLE WHO CONTRIBUTE NUMEROUS HOURS OF VOLUNTARY TIME & LABOUR TO THE SHOW EVERY YEAR - judges, stewards, marshalls. Working Bees before and after, show committee

Thank you to Lions Club – gate keepers, Hobie – parking, St John, Nelmac – cleaners, caterers, TDC. Numerous trades, entertainers who all keep us in order, fed and entertained on the day.

And lastly the public who enter, attend and support our show year after year. With 2500 entries overall this year it was a cracker.

THANK YOU ALL

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...appreciative audience. The morning’s activity climaxed with a three-way “shear-out” between veteran shearers in the Classic Final – a competition restricted to over-65s who have previously shorn in Golden Bay. Each working their way through six lambs and six ewes, Roger Simpson, Sam Win and Frank Bint expertly wielded their electric blades, working up a sweat as the wool piled up. It soon became a head-to-head battle between Roger and Sam, with the lead changing hands on a regular basis. But it was the former from Tapawera who edged it in the end, dispatching his final ewe moments before Sam did likewise.

The breathless shearing commentary could easily be heard from the woodchop arena where axemen and women swung their sharp heavy blades into lumps of solid timber. Although some of the top choppers were away at a test series in Australia, the A&P competition was fiercely contested. After a slow start Golden Bay axemen rallied in the Open class, with Steve Winter and Brian Godsiff scoring second place in the standing butchers block, while Dave Gowland and Ngatimoti’s Dave McEwen won the underhand butcher’s block.

Meanwhile, in the relative cool and calm of the produce booth, among the 2000 or so entries were an abundance of flowers, fruits and vegetables neatly laid out on tables around the hall. Visitors were also able to admire home-made wines, jams, pickles and cakes. Artistry of a different kind was on show in the photography exhibition as well as knitting, hand-spun fibres and other crafts.

Throughout the day the sounds of farm animals, fairground attractions and general chatter mingled with music from the Tākaka Citizens Band, the Motueka Pipe Band, and retro trio The Starlets who performed directly in front of the grandstand. The end of the Starlets’ first set marked the start of the Grand Parade, further heralded by the Citizens Band striking up in the corner of the showground nearest to the grandstand. In the opposite corner, a procession of collectable vehicles began to make its way around the rugby paddock. The eclectic fleet included dozens of classics – from a concours condition 1950s Jaguar to a tidy V8 Dodge Duster and a doer-upper Alfa Romeo. Four wheels then temporarily gave way to four legs – first with a parade of cows, followed equestrians on their horses and ponies – before a collection of tractors and a smokey traction engine chugged slowly around the arena.

As the steam-powered leviathan exited, the grandstand moved to centre stage. Picking up the show announcer’s microphone, A&P Association president Duncan McKenzie addressed show-goers across the grounds, and in the grandstand seats, from the top of the grandstand steps. Paying tribute to Tākaka Citizens Band, which has a lifelong association with the show, Duncan presented band president Crowther Reynish with a commemorative plaque. Crowther, who has played in the band at every show for 73 years, responded...

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