5th April 2005: Oxford Centennial Show 64 special medals in kauri boxes were presented to winners at the centennial Oxford show which was held on Saturday April 2nd. The medals were cast in bronze by local vet David Marshall who also created the footpath corgis in High Street, Christchurch. One face of the medal shows an early 19th century farm worker complete with scythe and pipe and the other a sketch of Mt. Oxford. Another highlight of the show was the shearing of Shrek 2, a local merino wether which had evaded the shearers for many years. There was no escape this time and the fleece, which took 9 minutes 21 seconds to remove and was more than three metres long weighed in at 31 kg, 3.5 kg heavier than the fleece from Shrek 1. You can see more photos of the Oxford Show at: Oxford Show Photo Gallery 19th March 2005: Bigger Crowds at Methven Show Crowd numbers were up at the Methven Show this year compared with last year despite cloudy weather in the morning. Fortunately for stallholders the strong nor'wester which frequently blows down from the Rakaia Gorge on show day wasn't around this year to tease their tent pegs out of the ground. Entries were strong across the range of over 750 classes competed for at the show. As usual, entries in the indoor section were of a very high standard. Show secretary Judith McMullan has held the position since 1999 and for almost all of that time she has been using the Showday program to process entries and results. Methven was the second show to use Showday starting only shortly after Oxford. This year there was a display of classic cars and old machinery including this traction engine once used by the Ashburton County Council. You can see more photos of the Methven Show at: Methven Show Photo Gallery 2nd March 2005: Whangarei Show runs with Showday Whangarei has joined two other shows in the Northern Region, Kaikohe and Helensville in using Showday to run its annual show. Malcolm Mckerrow visited the Original Software offices in Christchurch in February to check out the content and performance of the Showday program. As a result of discussions with Malcolm some new features were added to the Showday program which other show secretaries are likely to find useful too. You can find the Whangarei Show web site at: www.summershow.co.nz