WAIKATO WINTER SHOW.

Waikato Times, Volume 105, Issue 17728, 4 June 1929, Page 9

WAIKATO WINTER SHOW.

(To the Editor.) Sir,- —I was well pleased with your article or description of this year’s Show, but I think that I might assist you in the matter of the name of the starter or originator of the scheme, which I will endeavour to do in as few words as possible. About this time of the year (May, 1906) the late Mr James Shiner Bond, who was then and for several years Mayor of Hamilton, had occasion to pay a visit to Wellington, and on his return home called at Palmerston North to pay a visit to the Winter Show then being held tnerc. At the Borough Council meeting on his return he brought the matter up, to the effect that we should endeavour to also have a Winter Show,

■ but he thought the trouble was that we had not a building iarge enough. The thought at once struck me that Mr Arthur Storey, at that time manager of the Waikato Auctioneering Company, had asked me only a few days before if the Borough Council would put up a building on the empty section in Ward Street. On hearing what Mr Storey had told me the Mayor took the matter up, and on his motion “That the council appoint Mr F. E. Smith to draw up plans and the estimated cost at once,” Was carried. Mr Smith got the survey made at once, and at our next meeting, the cost being satisfactory, the motion was carried that tenders be called. The Auctioneering Company took charge at once, with the understanding that the Council was to have full use of the building, as required for the contemplated Winter Show. In reference to the contemplated show, it was understood that It was not to be called .the Hamilton Show, but the Waikato Show, and that fully half of the necessary board or commitee should be residents of the country districts and that the first president should be a country man, that Allen Bell should be first president and Walter Chitty vice-presi-dent, so that Mr Bond certainly deserves the distinction.—l am, etc., ISAAC COATES.