Team building is a course in and of itself. A few additional things to be aware of as you’re building your team:
1. Leadership. Democracies always fail. Select a leader and agree to follow him.
2. Voting. If you vote on something trivial, that’s fine. If you vote on anything serious, make sure that the decision is unanimous.
3. You get relatives, too. If your favorite kid sister’s scumbag husband begs to stay with you during a disaster, your decision will affect everyone on your team. Cover these situations in advance and make sure everyone is on board.
4. Kids & ex’s. Sometimes, the decision to keep your kid with you during a disaster means you have to take in your ex and possibly their latest love interest. This also affects everyone on your team.
Let us know other situations you are pre-planning for with your group, as well as activities you are doing together below:
Thanks so much for the course, David. My “segue” has been, “I’ve actually been working through a little e-course on surviving in place, in situations where evacuation isn’t viable. You always see those little flyers about what you should do to prepare for different kinds of disasters, and I’ve never really done any of it, until now. This is a systematic plan — well researched, pulls a lot of information together in a workable way.” Thanks, David!
Great info. But, you did not talk about a ready made group, “family”. I already have 18 family members to prepare for. Youngest is 7, oldest is 81. We do have a good mix of skills. But, a bit spread out, a few are 135 miles away. Should I be looking for more members? I don’t have room or supplies for more. Thanks for the help. John
The last lesson was excellent. This lesson is one to really think about. Yes, who are the people with like minded ideas? I do have a few in mind. I will proceed with your suggestion. You’re right, it is comforting to have a partner who will be willing to share the same hardship with trustworthiness all the way. This is an excellent lesson. Thank you for all the tips. They are comprehensive and to the point. Thank you David. May God Bless you in what you’re doing to prepare people. I sense that you too read the Gospel from time to time. I’ve checked into people in my area but are still too far from Santa Barbara, Ca. I’ll see if i can recruit two other friends to take the course with you. This is too important let go by without considering their family members in mind.
Thanks, again David.
First, thanks for the course. I think that Ospec is the most important part of the section process. I have 10 people that I have to plan for in case things get bad. I have done some planning but a long way to go. My immediate family is on board and willing to do what is necessary to make things work. I may need to be stressed that the stores only have a three day source of food on board on the shelves and will have some truble getting more if needed. Also,hardware stores will sell out very fast of the essental items that are needed so you need to prepare as soon as possible.
Thanks Dave for this info, you are saving lives. God bless you.
Just wanted to comment about CERT, as it was suggested to attend local CERT training to get useful information. I’ve been scouring the state of NJ to find out where I can get training, and I have not been succesful. I’ve had some lengthy conversations with so called county coordinators who are supposed to be administering such training, and I’m getting nothing but runaround and bla bla bla, budgets cuts, funding, talk to your local officials, etc. Just another troubling sign of what seems to be a trend of our goverment disassociating itself from the citizenry. Anyone else have better luck getting CERT training?
There are troubles with budgets, but it varies from place to place. I have friends in very good CERT groups in Utah, Maryland, San Francisco, and LA. The CERT website is showing 440 CERT organizations in NJ: http://www.citizencorps.gov/cc/CertIndex.do?reportsForState&cert=&state=NJ You can also click on the “Find nearby CERTs” button on the left hand side, enter your zip code, and find the closest groups.
My team building endeavors have been a dismal bust. Not gonna go into detailed why, but will say this as my experience thus far: people with the most money seem to think they get to run the show; viable skill levels are ooooooogled over & seem to make one extremely desirable, yet somehow those oooogled skills get put on back burner as “insurance” “until IT happens”; like mindedness gets dispersed under the microscope; teams seem to think “a” leader is not achieved by a group election, and that multifaceted “leaders” can’t exist within a group who could/should have differing viable skills, therefore “leaders” under various scenarios emerge. Somewhere I should add, even the little toe on the body is a viably skilled group memeber. I could go on and on…. but, I am learning to keep my mouth shut! :0
In assessing a “team”, group liability has become a paramount criteria. And “team” outweighs “group.” At this point, I will stick with my family, neighbors, and dogs… take my chances. Plus, we are continually praying for God’s direction.
Lesson learned: group/team is not an easy fit.
I’m lucky, I have a large family, ( about 30 of us) all like minded, all like trained…skilled, and supplied….ages range from 13 to 75, we also have 257 acres on a mountain with our own private 3 acres pond, and there is game in the area also…. We’re not really looking to recruit any new members….
However, aside from the family group, which would only assemble at the mountain location for a major incident, the location is home for one family member…. and it’s a ways away from my location, so I have a very small group of extremely close reliable friends of 20 years or more that are like minded and live within blocks of me, and we have a kinda sub-group, if you will, because they also have large families that they would be leaving to go to in the case of a major incident…
So for incidents where I would survive in place at my location I have one team of people, and major incidents where I would be leaving my area for a BOL… a whole different team there….
WoW this is great information. I have had First Responder, CPR and EMT training and do not know what C.E.R.T. training is or maybe it is the afore mentioned. In any case My home is NOT defendable, we have a few supplies and my wife and I have separate lockers due to the fact that we have different requirements. If all hell brakes loose we only expect to last about 3 to 12 months max. Hopefully we could bug out and head southwest to try and avoid the masses for a better climate. My neighbors for the most part are yuppies and very well off individuals. The group of people that we hang with are great both Christian and just God fearing people. However, they are what you would refer to as numb nuts when it comes to survival or just self defense. We are going to use your info to help establish a worthy group and God willing never have to use deadly force.
Family is widespread and most not on board. reluctant to recruit strangers. Those of you with good support are very lucky!
Julie where are you from?
thanks again for the course David! this lesson make’s a lot of sense,i only have one neighbor that i know well eno0ugh to talk to about this plan! my son will be home from college soon.He’s not really on board yet,but he will be,if it hits the fan! God Bless…………….
David, I’m 84 and my wife is81& has Alheimers. I’m from WW2 and Korea and have some skills and in good shape.
Plan looks like we stay in place, but so far initial talks with some friends leaves us alone. Defence is .22 side arm
& 12 gauge. Home in heavy wooded area and fire major concern. Most people here on the mountain don’t think
there’s a problem in the world. Children live in FL. Is there an E-mail support group in TN. I can communicate
with. H
David, hello.
This course is an update for me having been in the Military. I’m also a member/ Squad leader of my local CERT in the Antelope Valley in the northeast corner of Los Angeles Couty.
Now you know why my website is,and only you can put it up for others to go to so that way I’m not advertising for free.
Maybe I should moderate my own last blurb, as I see misspelled words and missing words too.
Here I thought i’d checked it all!
Thank you so much for the written instructions and manuals,,I have been training myself and children since 1998 (and we are trained, mind you, from hand to hand combat in wilderness or in urban settings (use of all weapons available-and everything is a weapon) to water petrification in seconds with supplies always on hand (without ever using bleach or boiling), we can live off the land comfortably for months (without ever being cold, hungry, or lost) and put the best of them to shame, we can be exposed to people that are viral with a pandemic and never get sick) I did all this while my children were still tots they are now, well trained and in the military now, they are adults accept for my 15 year old the last one – I am a single mom (what you might call a welfare mom, so never say you are too poor or have not enough money) and I have been able to buy 40 acres of land store up much food and supplies all by myself with little to no income or outside help, I have had to research and learn on my own, I even choose to move to a location that would best benefit our new skills, I have been looking for like minded individuals for so long I gave up, and just focused on myself and the kids, sometime ago I ran across a team of what seemed like contentious individuals, but within months the team or group fall apart (weird, this has happened numerous times with other groups over the years we have tried to team up with) maybe a good thing, you want that to happen before the world falls apart I guess, so you know what and who you are really dealing with, your manuals David; allowed us to physically check off our knows and do not knows and it allowed us to do a self/family check and I was very surprised we seem to be on board, it took me years to find all the information you had, I am glad to see that someone was able to put it all together in easy to read manuals for beginning and seasoned survivalists, than you for all your hard work. We do so appreciate you and your time.
thanks for a thought provoking look at being prepared
I live in a small town on the edge of a Large city
a few of us want to approach the town board about their emergency plan/community response team .
i will need to address the town board with ideas
all though i do not want to expose the level of preparedness i have for myself
any way i could help our community be prepared(knowingly or unknowingly)
any thoughts/ideas
thanks for any comments