Parade and Fireworks 7/16/26

Printable version

Parade Fireworks Minutes 07-16-26 68 KB

Web version

Richmond Fourth of July Committee minutes

Attendees: Sue Glennon, Julie Wahlin, Justin Spence, Tommy Carpenter, Stefani Hartsfield, Chris 

7/16/26 Minutes

• Post event feedback - Great feedback/response.
  • What did you like about the celebration? Parade, Fun Run, Food Vendors, Fireworks, Petra
  • Did you visit the food vendors at night? Yes(21%), No (68%, Didn’t know 17%
• Fun Run - Heather said she would do it again. Positive feedback overall. Run went great. One comment said that having dogs in the parade can be difficult. We have allowed dogs in every year. Must be on leash. Sue said that Chief Matt stepped up to support at the last minute. He is very supportive.
• Parade -
  • Politicians in the parade put some of our sponsors at risk. But we have never turned people away from walking in the parade.
  • The Auction is too much work to put on again. Not enough volunteers to make that happen.
  • The idea of having an event in the park before the evening activity seems good.
  • Great suggestions on the feedback form for more floats. Neighborhood competitions, businesses. It gets people connected in the community to build the floats. Seems like a strong theme and friendly competition may get people to participate and create more floats
  • Sue gave Julie the list of Parade themes and Grand Marshalls from the beginning. Julie will type up and put in drive.
  • Bigger prize money? Maybe that will attract more entries.
• Vendors - 4 vendors that should have showed up during the day and only 2 showed up at night. Jericho lemonade & Samosaman sold out by 2pm. The majority of the vendors sold out of food or needed to replenish during the day. Tom said the vendors all seemed to be doing well.
  • Requests for fries and more affordable food
  • Will put out the vendor request early again. Vendors book early
  • Leos BBQ wants to do more next year
• Activities - Kids games were excellent and super busy. Petra Cliffs said they will be back.
• What didn't work well?
  • The only reason the parade started 5 minutes late is because we had to wait for the chief to come down from the fun run road block to start the parade. If we had another police officer for the fun run the chief could be lined up and ready to start the parade
  • Getting people to volunteer for small parts of making the day happen. It’s not as much work as people may think. It's just 7 of us making that whole day happen.
  • Times Ink article came out as an ad instead of an article. Somehow there was a communication breakdown with Heidi and on the committee over what was needed. Wondering if it had to do with us listing all of the vendors in the article with the day’s schedule instead of just the schedule.
• Ideas for next year - have someone manage the car show, karaoke, band, etc.
  • Sing national anthem - 2 women are interested
  • Move up time when we announce maybe closer to 12:30/1pm but not at 2pm.
  • Senior Olympics to be in the parade.
  • Car Show - Tom, Chris and Mark Howland volunteered to do the car show next year. Justin will coordinate with them. Tom will connect Justin with the woman who is part of car group who is interested
  • Tom has a list of ideas for next year started

Next meeting : Thursday August 20th 7pm