The Prepared staff in the news with down to earth prepping philosophy 

Bob - March 23, 2021

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/Can-Texas-leaders-learn-anything-from-preppers-16042090.php

John Stokes, John Ramey and Tom Radar in news. The John Ramey philosophy is exacting: “modern preppers” = the older term “daily life”. 

Dr Sarah Avery is a “low impact” prepper. This means, from my inference, don’t spend time preparing to survive an overhead nuclear explosion.  Just work on the basic, daily life, stuff.

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Some additional principles of prepper philosophy:

Try to attend the public meetings of your city/county. Most of the articulate regular attendees cannot distinguish between a first aid kit and a burial shroud.

Consider giving a prepper class to home schoolers.  Here, the parents/guardians have well-established guest speaker programs. Consider speaking before a 4-H club.

Volunteer, even part time, occassionally, at a local animal shelter, fire station, etc.

Develop decent relations with the local media.  They do constantly need news and if not displaying your first class airline ticket to New Zealand in case of perceived nuclear war for an article, something could develop.

 

Bob, 

All excellent suggestions. I will touch on each of your points:

Attending public meeting of local city/county – If anyone wants to understand how important that is, read the local council meeting minutes (if they are published and should be onine or in office for public access).

That should give you a pretty good idea of what is being discussed in your community and, to put this diplomatically, whether or not your local representatives could benefit from your knowledge and input at a meeting.

Don’t be shy or nervous about speaking at a meeting. Just go and speak as if you were talking to family or friend. You don’t have to a professional speaker.

Be clear in your words. If necessary, ask someone to help you compose your speech to council.

If you have anxiety get a proxy to speak for you or write a letter and mail it. But speak up. You are a member of your community, your city, your home town and what you are able to contribute matters.

We get the communities that we are prepared to participate in. If we see crime and don’t call police or report it, then crime continues. If we see a child hurt and don’t speak up, a child in our community suffers.

With or without our participation, there will be an outcome. Without participating, we may not like the community that evolves, especially in an emergency or crisis.

There will always be people who won’t get involved. You don’t have to be one of them.

Second point, Yes, talk to home school classes or a 4H club or a Grandparents group (they can teach their families). Talk to a youth at risk group and help them understand that there is a better, more responsible way to live.

Talk to parent groups also. Find out if local factories or firms would welcome a noon hour or would make time for a speaker. We had a self defense speaker in one of the banks I worked who came in on our lunch hour.

How about speaking at an art’s group or yoga group, cooking group or life skills group? There are so many opportunities to teach and speak about preparedness.

Also, seize the opportunities as the come, to speak one on one with people. The grocery store, waiting rooms, at a bus stop or in a line up are all opportunities to communicate with people in a positive way about prepping. The bonus is they see us a normal, everyday kind of people, just like them, except we practise preparedness.

Third point, Volunteerism is what makes us better people, and creates better communities. It is such a priviledge to serve others and help them. It feels so good to go home after a volunteer shift, knowing that you made a difference today.

Volunteering will also help you understand the needs in your community, so that when you go to a local/civic level council meeting and be even more informed.

Also on last point Bob made about local media. Suggest news stories. Get to know some of the staff writers by their writing and get a feel if any might be receptive to writing about preparedness in a positive way.

Introduce yourself and tell them preparedness has been a misunderstood lifestyle. Here’s how we do it….

Bob, Thank you again for these great points. Was over the moon to see your post and the article. Well done! 

 

Bob, Congratulations on the feature designation. Very well deserved.

 

Is there a way to read this article without having to subscribe to the Houston Chronicle?

 

OHG, I read and posted article with no subscription.  It wasn’t paywalled for me.

 

OldHouseGirl – This link should let you read it: https://archive.is/1hlhI

 

Thanks!

 

Thanks, worked for me too. Great write up!

 

Bob,

Thank you for posting this and I had no problem with your link.

I am so happy to see common sense preparedness in the media.

Finally!

 

Hey Bob, I hope you don’t mind that I changed the title of this post to make it a bit more clear. Feel free to change it back if you want.

Really appreciate the link to this article and glad that you enjoyed some of the prepping philosophy found in it. 

 

Gideon, Appreciate any and all improvements to polish up thread title.

 

I always enjoy those articles where the preppers kind of are thinking in the back of their mind after a disaster ‘I told ya so’. But good on The Prepared staff for not rubbing it in people’s faces. 

Sounds like they are working on some emergency medical content. I’ll be looking forward to that. It’s one of those areas of prepping that isn’t my favorite, but is one of the most important.