The first part of this series described the foundation for success in starting a community preparedness group. If you haven’t read it yet please do so now before proceeding.
The first step in implementation is to find a few like-minded individuals with whom you can share ideas, receive counsel and help spread the word about the first CQ. As I mentioned previously I used the wisdom and connections of a local businessman who saw a lot of like-minded folks come through his door. I also sought counsel from a few others whose temperament and personalities were complementary to my own and conducive to a strong group bond. This core group was jokingly called “The Council” one day when my son asked who was coming over to sit by the fire for the evening. I, of course, was referring to Elrond’s Council in Lord of the Rings. One of our council even looks like Gimli–go figure!
I highly recommend anyone looking to start their own CQ have something similar to fall back upon for guidance and input. Let me be very clear. Your council will fail you if it doesn’t include your better half! I’m talking to you men! Your wives are there to complement and actually complete you. You are incomplete without her. Would you drive a car with only two good tires? Point: You won’t get very far. They have insight, intuition and wisdom we don’t. Include them from the start and it will go well with you.
Step two is to advertise your first CQ. Advertise quietly and by word of mouth only. Hand out fliers to just those friends and neighbors who might be interested. This will ensure a small turnout but a turnout with quality. Use the first CQ to work out the bugs. Have more discussion time and talk over your goals and plans. Take input and ideas and implement them into the next one. Once you are comfortable and see how it goes you can go bigger on the advertising by hanging up flyers.
Step Three is to make the CQ more sophisticated by offering more for attendees. For instance, we brought cookies and coffee/tea to the first two CQ’s. The third CQ we started early and added a potluck meal fellowship time and then we added a campfire social to the end. Those wanting to hang out and talk did so until late into the evening. Ironically, we set up a big tent (borrowed from an attendee-keep it cheap) and the meeting ended up being held with 50 plus people standing around a large fire pit. Relaxed, cozy and warm. It felt like a big family gathering and was quite productive. All the subject content should be building upon previous CQ’s. Say you start with basic seed sprouting, then small garden to large garden to greenhouse production. Simple to complex.
Step four is to add extracurricular activities as you and the group feel comfortable. For example, the first CQ we did a topic on Pruning. I offered a workshop the Saturday morning after the CQ and several people showed up to “watch” me prune fruit trees. It was very rewarding for them and after about ten minutes they went from pupils to management telling me which branches to cut and where. I finally had to chase them off by asking who wanted a turn.
At CQ-3 I sent a sign-up sheet around for a Utah conceal carry class. We had to have a minimum of 10 people to sign up to get the instructor to come to us saving us an hour travel time. We had nearly 20 signup. We are planning a mid-summer Barter Faire where no Federal Reserve Notes “money” can be used. Just barter with goods and services. All services need to be preparedness style goods. Breads, leather goods, knife sharpening, honey and other hand-made goods. No yard sale fodder allowed.
Also, we are planning several cider pressing days when the fruit comes in. I have also traded my jam making skills for access to acres of blackberries. We will pick and make jam the same day. I can taste the fruit of our labor already. Yum! These extra-curricular ideas can be timed to the season and community need like group firewood day or cider day.
Step Five is making sure you are ready for anti-CQ mentality. We experienced at CQ-2 a newcomer who was quite visibly agitated at the presenter who was reviewing a formal emergency management plan. Everyone in the room new this was a review of what the professionals use and was not intended for us as a group. The individual left agitated at the break. The next day I spoke with him and I thought I had clarified the direction of CQ enough for him to be satisfied. Boy was I wrong. The agitator then changed subjects.
He believed the CQ should be run differently and have a different focus. He seemed to have some valid points to his argument so I offered him the chance to present these ideas to the “Council”. The mistake I made was offering empathy towards his ideas by stating some of them have merit. He took that to mean that I thought all his ideas had merit and that I just needed a little more information to make the changes he wanted-which wasn’t the case. I think the meeting with the “Council” went quite well. This individual did convince us. He convinced us that there is a radical, self-serving segment to the survival community of wanna-be bad-asses who will do and say anything to create a fictitious resume of skills and expertise.
Let me be very clear. Do Not Give Radicals a Formal Platform at your CQ. They will instantly destroy your credibility and your groups momentum and attendance will suffer. We decided to graciously encourage this individual to go create his own militia or “Black Ops Group” as he called it. We let him know that we weren’t as prepped as him and needed to focus on skill building or basically 4H for adults. Well, to say the least, this didn’t work. He turned on the full court press trying to entice me to the dark side. The harder he pushed the more evident his lack of credibility became. I refused to respond and his final last gasp was an insulting email that included a personal threat to me. He even resorted to accusations of government conspiracy and infiltration by members of the “council” into our community. The final red flag for us was his incessant desire to be in control and make CQ into his own personal fantasy of Red Dawn in Idaho.
An interesting side note: A clear indication of embellishment of his expertise was the fact the he called himself an expert in preparedness but had never read or heard of the novel “Patriots” or SurvivalBlog.com
Step Six is to embrace programs that already exist and can jumpstart your CQ or give it a definite boost. As I mentioned in Part One I don’t like to re-invent the wheel so I looked to the local LDS community for what they already had rolling. We were able to join their local radio network making it even more community based and not LD- based. Once a month they do a radio check on GMRS radio frequency channel 20. The check is run professionally by the net command. They call out instructions in order of importance. Any emergency traffic is given immediate priority. Then a roll call of captains is taken. These captains are central to their area or neighborhood. The net commander then calls roll for each area/neighborhood and then visitors to the net get to call in.
The exercise is vital to where we live due to the mountainous terrain and lack of comms between valleys. Those on points and mountain tops complete the radio check by relaying to command messages and contact information. The last radio check on Sunday evening was impressive as to how far our net could reach and how professional all those taking part in it were. As we grow our CQ from the local to the regional this radio net will take on a whole new importance.
I’ve also learned that each LDS church has a local “purchasing agent” that actively pursues great bargains. All we had to do was ask to be put on her email list and we were in the loop on great purchases of long term storage food. When the email goes out you just reply to the instructions on where to pay and pick up the goods when they arrive.
We have also found out our county has a part time emergency management director. He has been a good source for print materials pertaining to disaster preparedness–specifically fire and pandemic. We hope to start working with him and the county on a county/regional plan through the political power CQ can wield as it grows. I’ll have more on this in Part Three.
Step Seven is to allow and encourage local businesses to participate. These local businesses can provide experts for your topic discussions and great locations to advertise your CQ and get people attending. One of our CQ topics was basic communications and radios. A local communications company attended and they gave a great lecture on radios and radio wave propagation with our local group in mind. They even brought examples of radios to buy and we discussed as a group what radio to standardize with for our communications net.
Another topic was water production and storage taught by a local well driller with 30 years experience in well and spring development. At our next CQ a local health food store will give a lecture on Home Herbal First Aid/Medical Kit-which will focus on grid down prevention.
In closing, these seven points are meant to help you implement and succeed with your own CQ.
1) Find like-minded individuals as your foundation.
2) Advertise quietly and purposefully.
3) Make subject content increasingly more sophisticated.
4) Added extra-curricular activities as you grow.
5) Be ready for antagonists.
6) Embrace other programs that already exist.
7) Encourage local business to participate.
All of these points are dependant upon your good listening skills, focus on excellence, and pursuing what can bring you and your community together rather than what can divide it. In CQ-Part Three: The Big Picture, I will describe where we are going and our vision for the colloquiums. So I will leave you with one final point. The best part of CQ is that its private. We never ask anyone what they have or what they are doing [to prepare]. Don’t know! Don’t want to know!
Gloria Deo, – H.B. in North Central Idaho