Sensible Prepper conference in NC October 14-15

[1Admin]

We may be attending this conference this weekend in Greenville, SC.

http://sensibleprepperconference.webs.com/

Would have posted this sooner but just recently got the info we needed to attend.

Tell your friends and post it on other forums.

Anyone from the forums here attending? If so please stop by and say hello!

Robert

[fallout boy]

r you or Bob from Paw goin to be speaking?

[1Admin]

No. Can't say for sure for Bob but I don't think he's attending.

To be honest, the survival movement is full of a lot of people that haven't been into it very long right now. The old timers would know who I was, but a much smaller percentage of these newer folks would.

Besides, I'm shy and have never spoke in public before ;) LOL

[protus]

yeah bob wont be there....didnt really hear about it till a bit ago.

[1Admin]

We'll have a vendor table also with gear, food and Night Vision from JRH Enterprises. If you wanted to demo or see in person one of the PVS14's JRH sells so cheap (compared to others) then stop by the conference and you'll be able to demo one in person. We won't be bringing a boatload of stuff to the conference but we will have some medical kits, Katadyn filters, gas mask, some long term storage food in #10 cans, etc. Kinda doing this one on short notice, so we won't be as organized as we used to be at the big Preparedness Expos.

[1Admin]

Had a great showing last night for this conference, probably a couple hundred people. We about sold out of stuff we brought. I'll be there most of the day today.

Good atmosphere, definitelya lack of "keyboard commandos" so far as I could tell. Seemed to be very friendly to new/newer folks preparing.

Only got to pop in on a couple of the talks, but they seemed to be good.

Met more than a couple folks that knew me from the videos, forums, old radio show, etc. We haven't done a show of this sort in almost a decade, so it is a nice change for me.

[rockriver]

sounds like a good constructive meeting.

and congrats on the good business part too.

[Lowdown3]

It was a good event, well attended and pretty well run. Everyone was very friendly, no egos or attitudes that I could see.

Definitely geared towards the "newbie" in this.

Predominately the material presented was geared towards the "I'm new, don't want to spend any money and feel like I have no time to prepare" type mindset. While many new people feel that way, I think it's short sighted to cut corners in planning because of it.

For over a decade on the net I've told people- You have time, the question is what are you going to DO with it?

If it's dithered away "doing research" (endlessly) and nothing else, well that's all you'll have when the time comes.

Yet from the benefit of a lot of time in, I can look back and see where I wasted money on nutritionally dead food and how that wasn't good when we LIVED off our food storage straight for almost a year solid. I can look back and benefit from the experience of organizing, setting up, etc. groups over 2 1/2 decades.

Some of these new folks just getting started may not have that benefit if time really does prove short.

Are we helping them with the "do this cheap or halfway" mindset? I don't really think so. They might not have the time/money for a "do over" when they get sick eating nutritionally dead food for six months at a go, or finding out the $200. russian NV set is a total POS and fails after a couple weeks of solid use on OP or self destructs after a couple shots mounted on a weapon.

I guess my overal thing is that I absolutely HATE wasting money. I've wasted so much trying to be a cheap arse in this for 2 and half decades that I always want to warn people when they make the same mistakes I made previously. But when the majority of people have less than 5 years into this and very few more than 10 years, it's hard to see a lot of failures in your planning and preparing in that short period of time.

The conference was very neat and we met a lot of nice people. The presentations were well done from the little of them I was able to get away and see. The main speakers- Sootch (sp?), SouthernPrepper and Engineer (guys that were on the Doomsday preppers show) were all decent guys. Didn't get a chance to meet or talk with some of the other presenters. The fellow that did the food storage presentation was good albeit his plan was very heavy on bulk and low on nutrition. I was very glad to not hear any "use handwarmers" type non sense and I actually CLAPPED when someone asked about them and the speaker shot the idea down. We should all clap when common sense prevails and stupid ideas are driven into the dirt- I'm serious.

The Nat Geo lady were there very actively but politely asking if anyone wanted to be "interviewed." Talked to Protus over the weekend and in typical Protus fashion we all love he says "you ought to go tell her- I'm not going to give you an interview but just to give you an idea, my setup blows away anyone here's" LOL Needless to say I did NOT tell the gal that LMAO!! I briefly toyed with the idea in my head of giving an "interview" to try to promote the forums, but decided that wasn't me.

[protus]

ahh come on..you know it was funny how i said to do it :)

glad it was a decent show with a good turn out.

gotta run....Momma P says there's a TV crew at my front door :P

[1Admin]

Protus- Yep, they said they would arrive at your door a little before 4pm. Guess she followed the directions I gave her well! That gal is timely!! ;) LOL

Just kidding for the automotons with no sense of humor.