Jesica Lozier, Director of the Fossil Basin Chamber of Commerce in southern Lincoln County, called into the Weekday Wake-Up on Thursday, July 24 with the chamber’s monthly report. Lozier focused on this weekend’s Oyster Ridge Music Festival, the upcoming Annual Fundraising Gala and a group retirement plan now being offered through the chamber.

(0:00) Monthly report for the Fossil Basin Chamber of Commerce and Jessica Lozier (0:04) joining me on the air via over the phone today. Jessica, good morning. How’s (0:08) southern Lincoln County today? Good.

Busy. Yeah, I bet. Of course, a busy, busy (0:14) weekend with the Oyster Ridge Music Festival this weekend.

I had Zach on the (0:19) air yesterday to talk about Oyster Ridge, but from a chamber standpoint, wanted to (0:22) give you a chance to mention that and the impact it has to the community. And (0:26) is the chamber involved with helping put this together or at least maybe (0:30) running the event? Does the chamber have any involvement? Yeah, the chamber does. (0:35) You know, we help downtown with beautification and so we’ve been helping (0:39) them do that kind of stuff downtown to get ready for it, but also we try to (0:46) partner with them as much as we can.

It does help them promote the businesses (0:49) downtown. This year they’ve been really good. The committee to listen to what a (0:56) lot of the local businesses want, which is not their business front covered, and (1:00) so they’ve worked hard to rearrange the vendors and close down the highway to (1:05) increase vendor space without covering the business fronts that are open during (1:09) Oyster Ridge weekend, which I think businesses are excited about.

It’s a big (1:15) weekend downtown for commerce. It’s a big weekend for lodging and sales tax in (1:21) Kemmer. The festival brings three to five thousand people in every year.

Most (1:27) of the lodging facilities are full, so you know, that helps us with promotion (1:32) money and different things. So yeah, the chamber’s a big supporter of Oyster Ridge (1:37) Music Festival. We’re very excited it’s happening and wish the new committee the (1:44) best of luck this weekend.

Yeah, absolutely, and so far so good. So it’s (1:47) Friday and Saturday at Triangle Park in downtown Kemmer. You can get the details (1:52) at OysterRidgeMusicFestival.com. Speaking with Jessica Lozier this morning, (1:55) director of the Fossil Basin Chamber of Commerce serving southern Lincoln County.

(1:59) Jessica, I know the big annual fundraising gala is on the way, and it (2:04) looks like you’re accepting award nominations right now for that, correct? (2:08) We are. We’re accepting the award nominations. We’re also selling tickets.

(2:13) You can buy them by the table. Front row tables are $1,300 a table. The second and (2:20) third row tables are $1,000, and then individual tickets are $100 a piece.

We (2:27) expect to have, you know, anywhere from 180 like we had last year to about 230 (2:32) people attend. So we’re real excited and gearing up for that. We’re starting to (2:37) sell the raffle tickets for the rifles and things that we give away at that (2:42) event.

You can purchase those at the cabin downtown or at local businesses on (2:51) the Triangle. Excellent. And as far as the award nominations, what does that look (2:58) like? How does somebody submit someone to maybe receive an award at the gala? (3:03) Yeah, so just go to our Facebook page and there’s a nomination sheet.

It tells (3:08) you what all the awards are, what we’re looking for with those (3:13) awards, and you can submit anybody’s name to those. It’s a business in South (3:18) Lincoln County. Perfect.

And this is coming up, is it August or September when (3:22) the gala takes place? It’s September 6th this year. It’s down at the event center, (3:28) and we’ll be doing the gun raffles again. We’ll have the award ceremony.

We’ll have (3:34) a really nice dinner, and then we’ll also be having a comedian this year as the (3:41) entertainment instead of a band. So yeah, it should be a good time. Very cool.

The (3:45) annual fundraising gala coming up September 6th with the Fossil Basin (3:48) Chamber of Commerce. And again, those tickets on sale now if you’d like to be (3:51) at that great event. Jessica, what else is happening with the (3:55) chamber? Any other summer events in the schedule and coming up with the chamber? (4:00) Yeah, so one thing the chamber’s been working on that we just initiated at the (4:04) beginning of the summer and we’re still working with the businesses on is we did (4:09) a group retirement plan.

And so businesses that join that get a (4:13) substantial discount for their employees on retirement because it’s like a co-op (4:19) retirement with the chamber. So if businesses have questions about that or (4:24) they’re looking for retirement, they can join the chamber and use our retirement (4:28) plan. So I think that’s a big benefit to small businesses and our community (4:33) and we got that program up and going at the beginning of the summer and so (4:38) we’re still enrolling people in that and working hard to promote that.

Yeah, (4:43) absolutely. What a great, great service and option for the local (4:47) businesses. Jessica, as always, really appreciate your time.

Anything we missed (4:50) you’d like to mention today while we have you on the air? I don’t think so. (4:54) Come down and see us. Oyster Ridge Music Festival this weekend.

All right, that’s (4:57) Jessica Lozier, director of the Fossil Basin Chamber of Commerce. It’s all part (5:00) of the weekday wake-up on The Spur and Swift 98.