A dispute over publicity about aspects of the Tauranga A&P show has resulted in association secretary Kris Newcombe seeking the resignation of committee member Owen Douglas.
Kris took exception to Owen's comments that the A&P Association relied too much on 'one arm bandit money” and needed work on expanding its membership base.

A scene from the 2010 Tauranga A&P show, of which its organisers are not working well together.

'A thousand members at $50 each to keep the thing going,” is one remark that Kris Newcombe disagrees with. She says they have enough trouble getting people to pay $10 subs.
'They haven't got anything,” says Owen.
'There's only a few members there now. You can't run anything on a $10 sub. I've just been with a guy today, asked him for the $10 sub and he said, ‘if you are trying to run the thing on $10 you are not a very good businessman.' He gave me $50.”
Kris says while the A&P Association does accept money from the Perry Foundation and Pub Charity, it also has other sponsors.
In two years the Tauranga A&P show has recovered from near extinction, after there was no show in January 2008 owing to the death of the association's former secretary Malcolm Whiting in July 2007, to becoming one of the bigger shows in the country.
'The show fell over because nobody else would take on the secretary's job,” says Kris.
Owen went to an A&P Association meeting in response to an article in the paper.
He found the association as it was didn't run according to the rules.
'I kept asking for a list of financial members and I couldn't get one, then all of a sudden they all said they were life members,” says Owen, 'but until they can prove otherwise life members pay subs.
'What they did was they ran the place as a closed shop and didn't want other people involved.”
Owen says the committee secretary is an employee and cannot seek his resignation.
Owen's statement that he's put $10,000 of his own money into getting the show back up and running is also disputed by Kris.
Owen points to new fencing and the transportation and use of his tractor, but doesn't want to go into the details.
Kris agrees that new blood is needed. The rapid growth of the A&P show over the last two years is putting stress on the 10 member committee which Kris says is not really up to the physical task of setting up for the show.
'The members, the committee are all getting old,” says Kris. 'We need young people.”
This year the committee hired a Tauranga Sports club rugby team to help with the lifting required to set up and pull down the show.
'There's a lot of heavy lifting involved in setting up the show and taking it all down on Saturday night,” says Kris. 'We need young people.”
This year there were 1800 equestrian entries with that side of the show still expanding, says Kris.
'The horse events nearly doubled this year. We made it such a good show last year word's gotten round – and they all came back,” says Kris.
'Next year for the horse side of it, we are going to have to make a special committee to manage it because it has just gotten too big. It is going to have to be a full two day show.”