Intro to Business

This is Kris typing. As you'll soon figure out, this blog and/or experiment we are jumping into is very much a strange mix of interests: entrepreneurship, friendship, music, philanthropy, time management, outreach, ministry, humor, and the list could go on. You'll find that we are doing this for a Christian ministry but even if you are not a Christian your $.02 on any of the above issues (or others) will still be appreciated/needed.

Here is the goal: raise $20,000 for the ELCA World Hunger Appeal before June 24, 2007. Various methods of fundraising will be employed to reach that goal (breaking knees is not one of them), but this page will primarily deal with the method of fundraising through the performances of The Normies.

Off the top of my head, here is a list of things we'll have to work on in the immediate future:
* Coordinating our schedules for practices and performances
* Finding our target audience
* Getting congregations to host us
* Figure out instrumentation of songs
* Figure out how to play our songs
* Getting the right equipment
* Making sure we use every resource for its full potential

In this post I'm going to briefly cover the business parts of the above list.

Our target audience will most likely be Lutherans in the Piedmont area of North Carolina. "Why?" That is a very astute question and I'm so glad you asked. First, the World Hunger Appeal is a ministry of the ELCA, which is the predominant Lutheran body in America, and people tend to come out and support their own ministry. Second, Thrivent Financial will supplement our fundraising (if we coordinate it properly) and nearly all Thrivent Financial members are Lutherans. Third, we have Lutheran connections. We will definitely try to tell of the appeal to people that aren't Lutheran but, to be frank, Nick and I need the Lutherans to help organize the communities so others will know about our performances.

To get congregations to host us is where the above idea comes into play. A congregation will help arrange the performance, advertise in the community, and get their local Thrivent chapter to supplement funds. I will have a meeting this coming Monday with various synod-wide (our "synod" happens to be all the Lutheran congregations in the geographic area of North Carolina) leaders; I hope that I can get some interest brewing for congregations that will host us. Also, I am working on other means of communicating our need of congregations' support, which I'll share more about when the times arise.

Using every resource to its full potential means just that. With these performances we will have one shot to fundraise in each community. The icing on top of this is that Thrivent has a specific process to supplement funds. We need to make sure we have our ducks in a row at the right time so we can walk away from a performance saying, "Yes, we raised as much here as we possibly could." Honestly, a goof here or a slight overlook there could easily mean $500 we don't raise. That $500 could have been a high-yield cow in Kenya or complete pre-natal care for 63 women.

Getting the right equipment. Currently, between Nick and I, we own two guitars, one amp (with only one input), a keyboard, and a harmonica. We borrowed equipment for our last performance (which was greatly appreciated - most people won't loan expensive music equipment) and I'm not going to ask permission to truck the same stuff all over North Carolina. So this thread will share our process of trying to find the right equipment for The Normies at a reasonable price; one of us is a honeymooner, both recent college grads, and both work for institutions of the church (non-lucrative jobs).

As a reader of this blog, we hope you enjoy reading about our journey. Words of motivation help; thoughtful input is appreciated. We hope you keep checking in to see what whacky antics The Normies are currently up to.

"Ugh...it feels like accountants are cranking add machines in my head."

~Make a joyful noise to the Lord

True Story

This post is mostly an opportunity for me to practice doing so, since I have never blogged before. Add it to the list of firsts that Kris has roped me into. After reading Kris' personal blog, I got the impression that he and I are on a reality tv show, but instead of a few thousand dollars on the line, we have the lives of several hungry countries hanging in the balance. Ok, maybe not that serious, but I think this will be a fun outlet for the two of us and the philanthropic aspect of it will give the both of us a good reason to commit to it.

Among the things that Kris and I also have on our plates (in no particular order, with no indication as to which of us owns the responsibility): full time jobs, school, a wife, training for a triathlon, a dog that is scared of Kris (which may make "band practice" difficult), traveling for work, trying to find a wife, contemplating a calling, living over an hour away from each other, and of course, memorizing Family Guy one-liners. Giggidy-goo.

All of that is in addition to learning new instruments, and music. The good news is this: we enjoy playing (music) together and it's for a good cause. I can't think of any better reason to be a Normie (or would the singular be Normy?). So I thank you for supporting us in our endeavor and hopefully we'll have some fun experiences to share here.

That's my Mama!

~ Make a joyful noise to the Lord

In the Beginning...

Hey all y'all, this is Kris and Nick, and we are a duo of musicians that perform acoustic sets in coffee houses and the like. We are both huge Family Guy fans, so when it came time to name our duo we settled upon "The Normies", which is a reference to a comment Peter Griffin makes in the He's Too Sexy For His Fat episode.

So The Normies we are. This blog will sort of serve as our webpage and let people know what it is we are up to.

Some background: we met as students at Lenoir-Rhyne College in Hickory, NC. We became brothers of the same fraternity, Pi Kappa Phi, and we share the same quirky sense of humor.

Our goal is not to become big-name musicians, but instead to share our gifts to benefit those that suffer in our world from extreme poverty. At our performances, the "tip jar" is actually a bucket that serves as a collection for the ELCA World Hunger Appeal. We also encourage people to join the ONE Campaign, which is an organization that doesn't ask for your money but instead asks for your voice to lobby politicians to live up to the United Nations' Millenium Development Goals. In the end, we are doing this music thing really for the philanthropic nature of it all and for the fun we have together (and with the crowd). Not to say that we are bad musicians, but Nick put this whole thing in perspective when he laughingly stated, "We aren't good enough to deserve keeping any of the money given."

This page will serve as a way to let you know what is going on with The Normies and to share what goes into setting up a fundraiser performance. We are currently planning to arrange some performances in the western Piedmont area of North Carolina during the time of November '06 through January '07. Feel free to write and give us any feedback.

~ Make a joyful noise to the Lord