The 4th of July is a fantastic time to be in and around the Fredericksburg area.  The rich Revolutionary War history and Fredericksburg’s part in masterminding and securing America’s freedom makes this our own special holiday.  If you are looking for something to do this weekend, here is a list I’ve compiled.

 

 

 

 

 

Stafford County

“The Complete History of America” Musical performed at the Riverside Dinner Theater. 

Friday, July 2- Sunday, July 4  (6:30pm dinner seating)  Tickets:  $42

www.rsdinnertheater.com/dt/upcomingspecialevents_2.aspx

Fabulous 4th of July at Ferry Farm

Saturday, July 3  (10am-5pm)  small admission fee

Interact on an 18th century farm while farm workers perform daily tasks around George Washington’s childhood farm.  Learn how the Patawomeck Indian tribe functioned in the 16oos.  Enjoy crafts, games, and live music.  Food vendors will be on site.  Trolleys will be running from the Fredericksburg City street festival, as parking is limited at Ferry Farm.

www.ferryfarm.org/events.html

Stars and Stripes Weekend at Potomac Point Winery

Wine tours and wine tastings will take place all weekend long at regular fees.  The band Blackstone will be playing on Sunday from 1-5pm.  A special July 4th menu is available for purchase. 

Saturday, July 2  (11am-9:30pm)       Sunday, July 3  (11am-6pm)

 

Spotsylvania County

Independence Day Kickoff Celebration – at Lake Anna Winery

The vineyard will feature live music, lite appetizers, and wine sold by the glass.  The $10 admission includes a winery tour and a souvenir wine glass. 

Friday, July 2 (6-10pm)

www.lawinery.com

Stars and Stripes Spotsylvania Spectacular

A fun event for all age groups.  Come and enjoy pony rides, moonbounces, a petting zoo, a tour of the historic Spotsylvania Courthouse and 1855 jail, and much more.  There will be 3 stages playing Bluegrass music, and the night is finished with a huge fireworks display!  Vendors will be on site for food and drink sales.

Saturday, July 3   (3-10pm)

www.spotsylvania.va.us/

 

Fredericksburg City

33rd Annual Rappahannock River Raft Race sponsored by the Fredericksburg Jaycees

Come watch this very entertaining and traditional Fredericksburg event.  Prizes will be awarded in several categories.  The race starts at 11:30am at the Port of Falmouth Park on River Road in Stafford and will end at approximately 4pm at the City Docks on Sophia Street.  If you are interested in participating please contact the Fredericksburg Jaycees at fburgjayceescdvp@gmail.com.  Entry fees do apply. 

Saturday, July 3

Fredericksburg City Heritage Festival

The always fun Heritage Festival will take place over two days this year since July 4th falls on a Sunday.  The traditional street festival will be on Saturday, July 3 from (10am-4pm).  The Heritage Day Parade will begin at 9:30am on Carolina Street and is still looking for entries for this year’s parade.  The parade is limited to bikes, strollers, wagons, and walking. 

Heritage Festival 5 Mile – Saturday, July 3 (7:45am) at the Fredericksburg Visitor’s Center on Caroline Street    Registration is $20 pre-race day and $25 race day  Cash prizes will be given to the top 3 male and top 3 female runners.  http://www.racetimingunlimited.org/raceinfo/HF10Info.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1

The fireworks will take place on Sunday, July 4 at Pratt Park. Music will begin at 8pm and fireworks will begin at dusk.  The Frederickbsburg Jaycees will be on hand selling glow-in-the-dark jewelry to help make the celebration even more exciting.   Be sure to bring your own refreshments and blankets and chairs to the fireworks display.   

Heritage Day Festival and 5 Mile Run – Saturday, July 3

Fireworks – Sunday, July 4

Dear Fellow Spotsy Republicans,


As you know by now, the Spotsylvania Republican Committee, along with the Louisa GOP, is having our annual celebration of the Gipper and Honest Abe on this Monday, April 12, at 7 pm (with a 6 pm VIP reception) at the Lake Anna Winery.

This is a HUGE event for our committee and for helping Rob Wittman and Eric Cantor get re-elected- AND for helping do our part to take back Congress from the grip of Nancy Pelosi! The more we raise to help Rob and Eric, the more they can help Republican challengers beat four- yes, four- Democratic incumbents in Virginia! These are 1/10 the number of pickups needed to take back the House!

The tickets are an affordable $60 for individuals, $500 for a small table of 6, and $800 for a table of 10. Why get the tables instead of individual tickets? Because then you get invited to a special VIP reception with the special guest of the evening, Congressman Rob Wittman!

In addition to Congressman Wittman, an all-star lineup of Chris Peace, Bobby Orrock, Mark Cole, and many other local standouts in the General Assembly will be there, as well as Republican Party of Virginia Chairman Pat Mullins.

Committee member Cheryl Snyder, who has catered for the White House, will cater this event, which will include some of the best wine in Virginia! It will be an event that is truly worth your time and treasure!
So I hope you will join these guests and myself for a wonderful evening, where we get to celebrate a little- and prepare ourselves for the battle ahead in November!
Steve Thomas,
Chairman
Spotsylvania Republican Committee

Monday April 12, 2010- for the 2nd Annual Reagan Day Dinner & GOP Fundraiser at 7:00pm [link to invitation here] at Lake Anna Winery. It's hosted jointly by the Spotsylvania Republican and Louisa Republican Committees.


Come support your hard working local committees and enjoy a great dinner and fellowship with Americans who share your concerns about the direction our country is headed.

We are indeed fortunate to have as our caterer Cheryl Snyder. She has catered for the White House.

She has prepared an excellent menu for our enjoyment on Monday. Please get your reservations/RSVP's in immediately because we have to give Cheryl a final count. Folks who know guarantee the dinner will be worth the price.

7:00pm sharp (or earlier) come to Riverbend High School on April 1, 2010 and vote for a successor to Chairman Bryce Reeves. A Mass Meeting is sort of like a convention except the votes are counted as one-person, one-vote rather than weighted votes. You must be present to vote, no proxies, no early voting.

You have three great choices: Scott Mellott, Steve Thomas or Claude Dunn.

Including 5 minute each speeches and vote tabulation(s) it should take between 45 minutes and 2 hours total of your attendance. The winner of the election must receive 50% +1 votes to win.

You must be a Spotsylvania registered voter and be willing to sign a Republican loyalty statement to be eligible to vote. A $5 voluntary donation is requested to cover the costs of renting the school and so on.

See you there fellow Republicans!

From the eyes of the 2008-2010 SCRC vice-chairman… that's me.

Over the past two years, the Spotsylvania County Republican Committee (SCRC) has been blessed to have a prosperous track record and a growing and great collection of volunteers. I hope this will not change and will continue its progress. (By the way, the pictures in this post are a hodgepodge of snapshots I've collected at various events to demonstrate the many things we do throughout the year on the committee. It's not all just election-day campaigning. It's SO much more! They're in no particular order...)

On April 1, 2010 we will vote for a new chairman and executive staff starting at 7pm at Riverbend High School. Three men are seeking the chairman's seat but the one who gets 50% +1 of the vote will assume the job the next day. He'll need a strong and dedicated vice-chairman to help him succeed. This blog entry is dedicated to that person and to those who he or she would come in contact with in the next two years.

This committee has grown from just a few dozen regular attending members in 2007 to nearly a hundred— with more new faces coming to each meeting in 2010 than ever before! Growth has come especially since the 2008 presidential defeat when I think it started to actually “sink in” that our country is indeed in trouble and the “someone” who should “do something” about it is staring at us right in the bathroom mirror.

These new faces didn't just happen to stumble across the committee though (well I hope not anyway.) For the most part, they were somehow touched in their lives by some program or outreach that we've done either in between election seasons or during them. Some were contacted by an active or passive member who participates in our committee at some level and invited, or they might have just simply "Googled" us. Either way... the groundwork was already laid by "someone else" to get them to the next committee meeting where they became enticed enough to come back again and join.

While serving as the SCRC vice-chairman, I’ve accepted a lot of grunt-work duties and tried to make lemonade from the lemons. In retrospect, it was all worth it, and I can hardly believe it’s already been 23 months since I was sworn in! I’ve been an integral part in fundraising, committee promotion, recruiting, marketing, blogging, campaigning, organizing volunteers, lobbying, organizing huge events, phone banking, sign building, t-shirt making, social networking, advising elected officials, liaison work within the business community, street activism both locally and nationally, making headlines … and making new friends too! And that’s just the tip of the iceberg… and I’m only the vice-chair!

Our chairman does MUCH more than this, but I’ll get to him in the next post. Stay tuned.

The SCRC is bountiful and blossoming in 2010 despite our community, state and national setbacks— most of which are financially related, but also spirit-related too. I’ve talked to literally hundreds of folks in the region about their fears and realities in life and what role that government leadership and politics plays in them. I believe most would agree, when an honest conversation can be had— free from party rhetoric, name-calling and mud-slinging— that the government presence in our daily lives has expanded from a potential presence to a seemingly permanent one.

No one I know on either side of the aisle feels that they are freer and have more opportunities than they did 10 or 20 years ago. Most feel like they are one step closer to being royal subjects than free to do as they wish in a free country. No this isn’t all Obama’s fault— this is a growing epidemic in all levels of government that started long before the "anointed one" took the helm. If there's anyone to blame, we have only ourselves for not becoming more involved in who's running our government, and our lives, at ALL levels... from the HOA to the school board, the board of supervisors, the state we live in and most certainly the federal levels of leadership.

As vice-chair, I get a lot of emails asking about what we do and what is expected of our members. I love getting them! I try to get others involved and activated any time I can. This is the only way to get true community involvement in OUR government right??

Across the board, as I typically get around to what amounts to a recruiting speech for one conservative cause or another, the endgame responses I get usually contain, “I don’t have the free time”, “I wouldn’t be good at that sort of thing”, “someone else will do it won’t they?” “I don’t follow that sort of stuff (politics)”, “that’s what I elect other people for so they can worry about these things” and so forth.

BUT once in a while, I am fortunate to find a diamond in the rough, often with groups of younger people who aren’t as committed to the chains of adult responsibility yet; and we seem to be able to move mountains together with only the slightest direction and leadership. These are the moments I live for. These are the moments that make volunteering for a Republican Committee worth while… when I realize I’m not alone and I don’t have to do all the heavy lifting myself. There's actually "someone else" to help me!

Thanks to the committees I’ve served on or the groups I've given a talk or speech with, I’ve made friends that I know I’ll be in touch with for many years to come. Not all of them staunch Republicans either! Surprisingly, I’ve learned that not every Republican is an angel, and not every Democrat is a demon as MSNBC and FOX would have us all believe. I actually met a staunch Democrat named Angel working for a conservative Republican's campaign though. My head is still spinning from that one but it did answer the question, "can't we all just get along?"

YES WE CAN! (...MOST LIKELY)

In good economic times, it’s very hard to convince people that they need to join up with a conservative political committee to “keep what we have” and fend off those who would take from us and redistribute our collective wealth to others who don’t want to work for it. After all, there’s no immediate threat to anyone and it sounds like “boogeyman” talk. Folks get complacent quickly it seems. I’m supposing it’s because they didn’t help out then, and things are good for them— so why change?

When tides turn and the county is scraping for cash to provide the same level of service at the same time our families are losing jobs, while interest rates go up and credit gets scarce; people tend to look out for themselves first and leave the politicing to “the other guys”! This too is a seemingly impossible time to ask a neighbor to invest their time and resources in something greater than self, when they are legitimately concerned that they can’t provide food for their families.

In the past two years we’ve shared in good times and bad. We’ve had both victories and defeats both locally and nationally as a political party. But you’re reading this blog now and hopefully have been for a few years now since we started it, so I’m going to assume you know this already.

CHANGE WE CAN ACTUALLY BELIEVE IN!

I say all this to be brutally honest to the next vice-chair… to do this job right, you have to DEDICATE yourself to it, or you’ll let a lot of people down. I’m a firm believer in term-limits from a citizen-run government, or quasi-government group. It’s time for that “someone else” to step up and take the job, and I’m hoping that YOU will consider doing so. Yes YOU!

Victory favors the bold, but elections are won by those WHO SHOW UP.

Will you be the next SCRC vice-chairman or will you trust that “someone else” will do it for you?

If you won't step up that far to actually do the job, I'm asking as a favor to that person who does... please volunteer your time to the committee and its related causes that you're called upon to help with. If you can't do that for some reason, please send a financial donation in your absence to lighten the load of those fantastic volunteers with whom I've come to admire and respect. They don't usually get a fancy title, but they ARE doing the heavy lifting for ALL OF US.

Announcement!

Attend and vote* at the 2010 Republican Mass Meeting, April 1, 2010 at Riverbend High School, at 7:00p.m., by pre-registering via this form: [click here].

This meeting is open to the public, however only qualified registered voters may cast a vote. Are you interested in learning more and becoming an active participant in your county, how it's run and managed, and the Republican Party of Virginia?  Why not attend our next committee meeting?

A voluntary $5 donation is requested to cover the expenses of the Mass Meeting.