Ideal vs. Realistic Prepper Group Composition

Hmm, I've to admit, the lack of response (after 40 views) is mildly disappointing. I want to like this board, but the activity here is quite low. Is this really reflective of a province of 4 million people who are theoretically descended from "frontiersmen?"

Maybe all the true preppers are luddites who eschew technology / Internet.

Or perhaps my topic was deemed uninteresting / irrelevant / unworthy of a reply for some reason?

I will put forward some of my tentative thoughts on the questions I have raised and then see if anybody has any opinion.

1. I am guessing that 8 to 12 people are a minimum number to have wide coverage of many important skill sets, while still allowing enough "hands on deck" for manual labour, patrol schedules, etc. Keep in mind that 2 or 3 of these could be "down" at any given time with infectious diseases (making quarantine measures very important) during SHTF. This number is more for the "important players." There would be another class of semi-useful people who can do basic tasks but whom you would not want to directly trust with your life, and of course probably a number of people with age and health status such that they would be classified as "dependents."

2. For ablebodiedness, I think you'd want to have at least 0.5, if possible. A "true ablebodied person" in my definition, would be able to work 8 hours of hard labour or 16 hours of cognitive type tasks, would not have any significantly debilitating medical conditions, and would be psychologically resilient. A ratio of "0.5" could mean one super performer and one dependent, or two "semi-useful" people. Keep in mind that if we are talking about potentially "rebooting / rebuilding" society, we will NEED children (next generation), pregnant women (obvious), elderly people (walking storehouses of knowledge that are EMP-proof).

3. For skillsets. some are more critical than others.

I posit that food production and security are tied for number 1. If you don't eat, you die. If you cannot protect your food, you cannot eat, and you die.
Tier 2 is probably medical + trades.
Tier 3 is everything else (cooking tasty food, teaching children the alphabet, playing morale-building guitar songs around the bonfire).

Food production requires at least 1.5 experts (meaning 2 pretty good personnel, or one expert and one "apprentice / trainee"). Security requires at least 1.5 experts, as does medical. Mechanical might require more (3 people with passing knoweldge of 2 or more trades?), due to the diversity of trades.

Tier 3 is a grab bag. These skills are bonuses, but not strictly speaking, necessary for short-term survival.

That gives about 7 hand-picked Tier 1 and Tier 2 people, and maybe 3-5 who are more in the supportive (but still important roles).

If you have only one competent farmer, and one competent medical person, I suggest they should not be in firefights if at all possible. The security people you also don't want dead, but since their raison d'etre is protecting you and killing bad guys, they are obviously needed on the front lines.

Do people agree with the above? Is it "unfair" to talk of "stratification" (if only in concept)? Or is it just a practical reality when dealing with a very small population of SMEs?

The situation gets really complicated when you discuss food shortages? Does chivalry reign? Or do you feed your soldiers and farmers first because they are the means of more food?!

***

I'll leave it at that. I hope to hear from at least a few of you.

Have a great rest of the week...

hi, ok, I am one of the ones who read it, I thought your first post well done, your second is as well.. the problem I had and have is I do not find that talking about a group is really that useful..

I want to be clear, the information you have put out is good,, well rounded an sound.. but the ethical question are things that I do answer on public form, and the rest is a clear yes..

yes, if you can get a well rounded group do it, yes if you only have one of someone with skills, have them train others, share the knowledge and no, you can not say, I will feed you better then others, that is the perfect way to break a stressed group, you need to let them figure that out, look to ww2 an rationing to find solid answers on good ways to make that happen, it will mean those extra will go to those that are soldiers and farmers but in such a way that it bring a united front within the group, instead of breaking it

and I am going to say something on the elder, I see that a lot, its a very common false statement, while there are still some elders that have bush-garden etc knowledge, the truth is that in our country, most viable age wise elders were not raised or have "prepper" skills at this time..

Many, very great many, of that age, are the first gen or e even second gen to leave that dirt poor, grow your own, mend your own and so forth behind, they in a large part felt, they needed those skills no longer, turn the power on, buy from the store an so forth..

The sad truth is you are going to find a 20 to 30 year old organic, x woofer, permculture, gardener, mother to have much more knowledge now then you will the elder raised on white bread and store bought jam who did well for themselves..

Dang, had a reply all written and the power went out!!!!! Ok, placeholder, I'll put my $0.02 later.

Ok, here's my thought. First, I agree with your points, you seem to have highlighted what an ideal preppers group would be, at least how I can fantasize it; that would probably also get JWR's stamp of approval...

Reality though, I can't seem to come up of a single example where such a group has introduced themselves as such, including when groups openly came out of the closet like on Doomsday Preppers. C5 seems to have a decent group going, but I doubt they have every check on the list. Perhaps Villager (I hope I got the handle right) will also have success with his community.

I personally don't believe you can call yourself a group if you're spread out over 100s of miles and meet once or twice a month.

My take... I don't believe in such things as preppers group. I believe in a serious event, people are more likely to gel together out of necessity (think Walking Dead) than to walk 100s of miles to make it to the one house that's supposed to be the rally point (think Patriots), because frankly, getting there may be impossible and there's no guarantee that place will still be there once you arrive.

I live in small communities or small subdivisions where I try to meet as many of the folks I can and learn about them. If someone has useful skills, I make a mental note. I see that I may have to prep for them: extra flashlights, extra food, extra wool socks... Yup, it's not fair that I may have to give "MY" stuff away later for their benefits. I doubt they are preppers and have stashes and frankly, other than maybe discussing day-to-day preparedness ("hey Jim, did you have a generator when the power went out after the storm last week?") I would avoid talking prepper stuff. But if "Jim" is a good trades' person living a block away, he's very handy to me. If Sally next door is a paramedic, she's very useful to me, whether she has 1000s of .308 bullets put away or not.

Be a leader in your community and be the good guy/girl in your immediate neighbourhood. Next snowstorm, help cleaning a couple of driveways; if a neighbours hauls a few bags of mulch out of his truck, give him a hand. The neighbourhood/community will be better because of you and can rally behind you. So if the lights go off, you can muster the assistance you need to survive and thrive as a small community. Idealistic perhaps, but I see this as a more viable option than posting on preppers forum : "wanted, an electrician with solar experience in the Saskatoon area to join our preppers group."

BTW, my small subdivision has:
1 doctor
1 paramedic
1 electrician
1 carpenter
1 pharmacist
1 minister
3 teachers
1 retired farmer couple
1 horticulturist (you should see the garden!!!)
2 vietnam vets (infantry type conscripts) and a handful or Iraq/Afghanistan veterans

There also a beef rancher 1/2 mile away (spoke to him a few times, I got to know him better) and a hobby farm with about 6-7 horses (I also have to go shake hands with that family...)

Maybe some of them are inclined to preparedness, most likely don't. But if it came down to it, I'm sure we could work something out. "Jim, how about a pound of rice and a few gallons of purified water in exchange of fixing my _______?" "Sally, Bob, your flowers sure are pretty, but if you're willing to help us all out with gardening, I have a few 1000s garden seeds we could plant so all have food this summer/fall"

I can't see myself going at it alone with my family. Online preppers can give me the creeps (especially in this neck of the woods, no judgements, just my observations) and trying to meet people from around the state/province that are like minded is a lot of work, travelling and time for possibly no result. So I'm using a different approach.

Interesting replies...

Farmgal, I'm still bracing myself for outraged cries of "Ageism!" from your post as some crusty oldsters come out of the woodwork and shake their fists at your generalizations. 🙂

Helicopilot, an interesting and insightful reply.

Might I suggest a "hybrid" approach might also work? Your approach implies to me that "bugging in" is definitely happening. I agree that in slow-slide situations, or minor domestic disasters, a superficial kind of neighbourliness might provide some cohesion and interoperability. But just because you've decided your next door paramedic is "useful" to you and are willing to share some supplies with them ... doesn't mean reciprocation will occur, or at least not how you plan it. What if her family of 10 alcoholic meth heads show up and start living in her house? Are you still going to try and barter socks for medical care? Or will you just be painting a target on yourself? And when supplies are being shared around, who gets to define what is "the limit" of a family or neighbourhood or tribe? And if you haven't revealed much of your "true nature" to them (during comfortable peacetime), what makes you think you'll be better received in a crisis? (Maybe they'll just point the authorities to your house and say, "That guy has food and generators and GUNS!" - there is probably a significant Can vs. US cultural divide on this kind of topic and how things might go down). And how much can you trust them in a crisis situation? If a gang approaches, do your neighbours have the guts to pull triggers? Or will they freeze up or panic?

What I am suggesting is that your local neighbourhood community might be useful for lesser emergencies that allow bugging in. For the "big stuff," a BOL, and a group of people you have been communicating with, training with, and planning with for months or years is probably superior. If these people are fit and resourceful, they'll have a good chance of uniting at rally points or at the BOL(s), even if they have to do it by night hiking. They could use each other's houses as rally points also. For example, couple A lives only 20 km from the BOL. They head there as an advance party, and then secure the perimeter to make sure that it doesn't fall into the wrong hands. Family B lives 60 km from the BOL and is travelling by bicycle. They make it to couple A's house in 2 days, and then stay there for a few hours to regroup, resupplying with goods that couple A has left for them (even if this means leaving a small cache and sleeping area in a garage or tool shed if they want to keep the actual house secure). With skill, preparation, and luck, most of the group should be able to reunite. They then "go to ground" at the BOL for 2 to 4 weeks, keeping informed passively via Internet or short wave radio or ham. If it's a "Katrina" situation, some semblance of civic order will be in place when they return to deal with insurance claims and property damage. If it's really bad, like EMP or epidemic ... many people would be dead or weakened, making subsequent travel for resupply, scavenging runs, etc., somewhat safer.

If you have both a hardcore "bug out" group ... people who you are genuinely friendly with but jokingly hope that they never have to put their sniper skills into action ... as well as a more understated "bug in" group ... as described above ... typical neighbours ... you have more options. You might be forced to bug in temporarily (e.g. a member of your family is temporarily not fit to travel, or you are waiting for them to get home via their GHB), and can enjoy security and community from your neighbours for awhile. And if things look like they are getting bad, you do the late night exodus and head to the BOL. If possible, you could communicate with the bug out group via coded communications somehow so they know whether to expect you.

I look at meeting people on the forums like "Internet Dating." You might meet a crazy person, but you also probably have a greater chance of meeting a strong compatibility match.

Your neighbours are a "relationship of convenience" ... good while it lasts, but you don't want to bet your life on them. Your prepper buddies should be consciously chosen "comrades" who have your back when things go south.

Interesting replies...

Farmgal, I'm still bracing myself for outraged cries of "Ageism!" from your post as some crusty oldsters come out of the woodwork and shake their fists at your generalizations. 🙂

well, it is a generalization, there are wonderful elders that have lots of knowledge to share, but it was your term that got me..
elderly people (walking storehouses of knowledge that are EMP-proof).

As I attend local food events and or am the speaker or teacher in regards to gardening, and so forth but my main area (because there are even more knowledgable plant folks I work with) is growing, harvesting and food preservation in all forms..

I guess I see it more from the grass roots level, and I have the daughters, grand-daughters and in some cases great-granddaughters-sons coming to learn how to water bath can, pressure can, and I hear from them, the skills are lost between the "old skills" and the next generations.

And as I do ask every elder I can get my hands on. how did your family do this or that.. I get told time and time again, we left the farms for town, city and we left those skills behind for what we were told was a better way.

I love cookbooks, honestly, I have hundreds (farm sales, lets me collect them cheaply) and reading them is a glimpse in time.. for 40 years, homemade meant from boxes and cans mixed together.. you have to look in certain areas to find how to do things.. and then you need to do them, I spent a year learning how to cook with odd bits, but I now know how to serve brain (best in scrambled eggs), lung (done right you will think its pasta) jowls and tongue, organs and blood soup, I make a mean an tasty duck blood soup..

Its a skill to raise livestock well, but even among farmers, home butcher is a lost skill, and to use everything even more rare.. and those skills need to be trained and then used because I can tell you true.. just because a dozen books can say the same info, does not mean it will prove true, my girlfriends and I call it spit up.. someone wrote it and everyone followed suit.

Gardening is the same, while I can find lots of "elder aged" that garden, when asked in detail, most mean flowers and tidy yards..

Today we see huge local food movements, save the seed, hidden harvest and so many more, to many to list, and drive is GMO unlabeled food, wanting a local food shed and growing to bring food costs down.

From a preppers stand point, hidden harvest is both great and bad.. there are now maps of every fruit producing tree, bush and cane, on one hand great, the program gets a third, the pickers gets a third and the local shelters get a third.. but that patch of plums, we picked each year for eight years, now listed and nothing left when checked.

on the flip side, in one of our local groups, we have worked together to bring in group bulk buys of all kinds of fruit -food producing canes, plants and roots.. we started to bring the prices down to commercial levels for the local gardeners, example, local greenhouse three strawberry plants in pot ten dollars, 12 cents a plant bare root including shipping..

this has grown each year at a rate that is beyond anything we expected, five years in and we have added over 50, 000 plants to our local food shed, while that does not help in more total SHTF, in a slow degrade, that food shed can mean a lot! It keep reproducing itself, its zoned to our area and it will produce tons and tons of food..

So I second helicopilot in the idea of build your local network, create good working bonds, they will get you though most times, I personally feel its in our best interests to grow knowledge and skills in the general public as well.

Disclaimer: we may have to agree on disagreeing.

I don't subscribe to the bug out concept, that is with very few exceptions (natural disaster temporarily compromising my property). Rather, I try to live somewhere that supports a preparedness lifestyle; my next property should be even better yet.

I don't disagree with your group concept, but no one has so far proven to me that they could make this happen, so to me, this remains fiction. Alternatively I could argue that the ideal group is made of Superman, the Holy Pope, Chuck Norris, a Nobel recipient in world food production and a finance mogul that owns a nuclear attack proof underground complex. Nice wish, but not happening (in parts because superman isn't real).

As for neighbours, you're right, the meth heads can probably turn up, but I'd like to think that I have good neighbours and that they would consider self-preservation over extended family thugs that would eventually see their demise.

So, I would maybe have bugging out in my mind a bit more if I lived in a big city, but I don't. So the thought of strapping on a 50# bag full of camping goods to track to a remote camp somewhere that may or may not be there when I arrive doesn't sound right to me right now. Don't get me wrong, I have such a backpack... But that would about be plan "T" or even "W" because I'd rather try a lot more options before bugging out.

Disclaimer: we may have to agree on disagreeing.

I don't subscribe to the bug out concept, that is with very few exceptions (natural disaster temporarily compromising my property). Rather, I try to live somewhere that supports a preparedness lifestyle; my next property should be even better yet.

I don't disagree with your group concept, but no one has so far proven to me that they could make this happen, so to me, this remains fiction. Alternatively I could argue that the ideal group is made of Superman, the Holy Pope, Chuck Norris, a Nobel recipient in world food production and a finance mogul that owns a nuclear attack proof underground complex. Nice wish, but not happening (in parts because superman isn't real).

As for neighbours, you're right, the meth heads can probably turn up, but I'd like to think that I have good neighbours and that they would consider self-preservation over extended family thugs that would eventually see their demise.

So, I would maybe have bugging out in my mind a bit more if I lived in a big city, but I don't. So the thought of strapping on a 50# bag full of camping goods to track to a remote camp somewhere that may or may not be there when I arrive doesn't sound right to me right now. Don't get me wrong, I have such a backpack... But that would about be plan "T" or even "W" because I'd rather try a lot more options before bugging out.

I'm with HP with respect to "bugging out". We can all see it as much as we like in real life - Syria's refugees. No cammo, no fancy bug out bags, and the most successful of the migrants were the ones with enough cash to pay for safer and speedier transportation.

So would a better question be, What would be an ideal vs. realistic group of Syrian refugees? Does this change your list of ideals? Are any of these groups making their way to the West "going out on patrol"? What would that even look like?

Does this "real life" example fit into your planning as you expend time and resources towards prepping? Perhaps you believe that this sort of mass migration less likely in a country like Canada. (I am not disagreeing) But it always comes back to the same question: just what is it that you believe is likely, and that you will require a whole group of preppers in order to weather? Answer me that and I will opinion on the ideal qualities to face the storm.

Excellent replies.

FWIW, I will add a few vague clarifications (if that even makes sense), whilst also trying to preserve some OPSEC.

1. My growing group already has "some of the boxes ticked" in terms of the "superhero team"

- our main lack is in trades skills and food production
- we can also use more security personnel (non-psychopaths)

2. I mentioned a BOL. There IS a BOL to which our group has access.

- owned by some of the members
- easy driving (difficult but possible non-vehicular access from Edmonton)
- large
- fairly secluded
- good access to natural resources (fauna + flora)
- basic shelters in place

This location can support "survival" but currently not "living" in the sense that you would not choose to live there in the modern sense and want to commute to work 5 days a week, prepare your suppers there, and do your laundry. It could be done, but it would be a PITA. This is why group members use it for recreational and training purpose while they live in "real" residences elsewhere.

So I'm not talking about randomly strapping on a backpack and "heading north."

3. Real life scenarios were mentioned / requested by Antsy.

All group members would have access to the BOL for short-term / localized catastrophe. This could include some that would affect some members, but not others:

- job loss
- house burns down or sustains damage as to make it temporarily uninhabitable and members do not want to burn up all the insurance money on hotels

Consider that there are some relatively mundane but plausible scenarios that would make even a rustic bush location a viable option (at least temporarily):

- power outage in Edmonton in the middle of winter (How will you heat your home? Many people would be forced to shelter in temporary municipally-appointed locations that would probably include school gymnasium floors, etc.)
- disturbing spike of crime in local neighbourhood (e.g. murders, gang-related violence, backyard explosion - happened a year or two ago in one area)

Above scenarios would not require putting on the Rambo style bandana or donning of war paint. You'd still fully expect to re-enter society in a timely manner.

Admittedly, rare and extreme situations would be required before "flipping the switch" and turning all available vehicles into INCH vehicles, hiding any residual resources at your primary residence, with plans to semi-permanently relocate to the BOL.

- Red Dawn
- EMP
- hyperinflationary crisis that leads to famine
- truly disastrous epidemic

I think you can see that I actually do not really disagree with most of what has been posted.

Essentially, my group needs:

- at least 4 other solid members, not including a reasonable number of dependents (with above listed desired competencies, see end of bullet point #1.)
- to develop the BOL
- to enhance everybody's skills
- to enhance everybody's interoperability

Anybody interested, please PM me.

Thanks.

I know lot of you will hate what I am about to say. All this talk about groups and how they should look like is fantasy and theory. As a kid I grew up in in society
where everybody was self sufficient and completely independent of others. Than after living in Canada for 20 years I went to work and live to very , very poor country and experience the self sufficient life. Never ever I saw a group s You guys are talking about. You just try to survive and help each others .It is always
YOU AND YOUR family first. Most of the time for a doctor or other specials You have to travel for miles and You just exchange services for goods.
Do you think in case of disaster You your priority would be to organize the right people for your group ??. DREAMLAND.
Henry

Our group is based mostly on compatibility. We assembled it from small families that we regularly socialize with.
They all have various skills such as construction, hunting, foraging, farming, etc.
They are all aware of what they need to bring when they come (our house is their BOL).
Some will bring firearms and ammo, some will bring livestock and provisions for them, some will need to bring their own shelter (camper trailer) and all will need to bring any hand tools, rechargeable power tools, and every scrap of food from their homes.
It is interesting to note that not one of them considers themselves a prepper. That's not to say that if certain preppers from this forum were to randomly show up that they would not be welcomed with open arms, but given our distance from most of the ones we are socially comfortable with, it just isn't likely.
Sure, it would be great to list all the accepted "required skillsets" to make up the ideal group and go from there, but lets face it, finding compatible people with those skills would be next to impossible.
What good would it do us to have a skilled surgeon and all the equipment they require if they can't stand kids...we have kids and all of our group members do too. This would create issues and we won't have time to be "placating" someone just because we need their experience in whatever field.
As for bugging out, well the likely hood of that has diminished for us tremendously since we moved out of the city. It's not totally out of the picture, but the reasons for bugging out would also affect our group members. We have different options for bugging out, and under certain circumstances, our group members will be welcome to join us. Most of the reasons for bugging out however, would ave our group members using their own alternative options.

We too are several small family units with different lifestyles and career paths but we enjoy each others' company in social settings several times a year. We have learned to trust each other even if we don't agree on everything.

We have those knowledgeable in hunting and shooting, seed cultivating and harvesting, we have a few trades of different expertise, a paramedic and a psychologist. we have some with young kids, some with adult kids, and a few with no kids lol.

In a perfect world, we'd be buying a piece of recreational land that could be used before the TEOTWAWKI but most of us can't afford it right now. We prepare for the most likely event, which is job loss or severe recession, so that we can support each other if it comes to the point of people losing their homes and needing a place to stay.

If it is worse than that, then at least we know where to go, and what to bring when we do. Mostly. None of us are fixated on an apocalypse, we just enjoy having the "insurance" up front lol

Interesting subject! I find it even more interesting that you are all right!!! You should make connections with the community you live in. In times of plenty or in times of hardship-relationships with the people that live around you are extremely important. The group we have gotten together are a mix of long time friends, people in the community and friends we have even met on this forum. I also agree it's impossible to get the PERFECT solution! Henry is correct as well...in the end, you just try to live together to survive in the worst of times. I don't have the answer and actually, I don't believe anyone does.
Do what works! I have added this book as a great read on groups I think everyone would enjoy!---
The Survival Group Handbook by Charley Hogwood