Cindy Banks
Building a Music Community
June 16, 2006 | by brett | Permalink
Cindy Banks lives in the self-proclaimed, “Middle of Nowhere” Oregon. We managed to catch up with her about her passions and what she is currently working on. Her story is both inspirational and interesting. Please visit her website at www.brookshill.com
Here is her story, in her own words:
“I majored in music and theater in college and spent several years playing music professionally. When trying to make enough money as a musician to pay rent and utilities became unbearable, I started working in the software industry. I worked my way up from a part-time sales person playing music at night, to being the Director of Marketing for a multi-million dollar software company. I made a lot of money, but I was very unhappy”
“Last year I saw a beautiful, retired church and I dreamt of opening it as a community center. I wanted to have weddings, events and most of all, music there. For the last year, I’ve spent all of my time and money remodeling the building and trying to resolve zoning and financial issues. The way it stands now I’m still working full-time, I’m deeply in debt and I stand about a 50/50 chance of pulling my dream off. But you know what, it’s absolutely beautiful and if I am able to make it work, it’s going to be unbelievable. The neighborhood is behind me, I feel like playing music again, and the weddings that support the overhead are becoming more steady.”
“My dream is to hold music shows on Friday or Saturday nights and give the musicians a place to stay. We’ll get up the next morning and clean the space, hold a few weddings to pay the bills and spend the rest of my time doing volunteer work, playing music, writing, and participating in my neighborhood. Those are my passions. My dream hasn’t happened yet, but I guess the message here is that no matter how much you have to do to survive, the dream is always worth it and never goes away.”
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THERE IS ONE RESPONSE TO THIS INTERVIEW
Julia Goodwin Says:
August 15th, 2006
Cindy, I was interviewed by Brett and Dan on Aug. 2nd. I am creating a new program to help inmates reenter society successfully, called SMILES behind bars.
I returned from vacation yesterday, and checked on the website today and saw your interview and LOVE what you are doing.
What hit me really hard is, are you connecting with the wedding industry? Lots of people like the ‘wedding chapel’ idea, and yours is beautiful and personal. You have a wonderful wedding chapel that lots of potential brides would like to be married in.
You might also want to find a local retired judge and retired pastor, and see if they would entertain marrying requests, so you could refer brides to them.
You might also want to contact local churches, and let them know if they get wedding requests that they cannot provide for, please ask them to refer them to your wedding chapel.
And this message gives me another thought… Brett and Dan should get all of us Pursue the Passion interviewees together to brainstorm and share connections among each other, like a ’support group’.
Keep following your own flow. Stick with your marketing job until you literally cannot do it any more.
Love, Julia
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