Break Time:Looking Back at Seven Years of Progress

Before I take our summer break, Join me in a reflective journey on the remarkable seven-year evolution of "Survival Beyond the Bug-Out Bag." It's been an adventure starting with a simple commitment to a more financially sensible approach to survival prep. Now, we're digging into the major strides we've made together—especially our seniors—thanks to breakthroughs in solar power technology. Uncover how we've adapted to challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic, and learn why psychological preparedness and family communication have become cornerstones of our community. 
I'll also discuss my annual Summer Break and educational pursuits that recharge my commitment to our mission.

In the training area, Ill discuss some of our advanced classes. Whether you've just secured your concealed carry permit or are looking to further your defense skills, our upcoming classes, including the much-anticipated Concealed Carry Mastery and Home Shotgun Defense courses, are not to be missed. I'll recount my personal experiences from these classes, illustrating that education in firearms safety is an ongoing journey, essential for all of us. So, stay vigilant, stay informed, and remember, every episode brings us closer to mastering the art of survival together.

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Copyright: Refuse to be a Victim Personal Protection Training 2018-2024

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Our first podcast aired on October 1st 2018, and boy has a lot happened since then. Come on, in family, it's time for a meeting. Well hi, everybody, and welcome to Survival Beyond the Bug-Out Bag. I'm Bill Bateman, your host, part of the team at Refuse to Be a Victim Personal Protection Training. We are located, in case you've forgotten, in the Medford-White City area of Southern Oregon. That's at 6800 Kershaw, and that's where Kershaw and Corey come together in that really obnoxious turn. So we look forward to having you come on out, even just to say howdy and, believe it or not, somebody did that this week. They looked around, checked out the facility, talked to us, bought a season pass, and we're going to be seeing them again next Saturday. So this is a serious invitation and if you happen to be visiting from the Midwest we're not hard to find you can contact us via email and let me know. Maybe I'd be able to come out and say a hi howdy to you or hook you up with any of our other group of really skilled and helpful range officers Phil and CJ, of course, are always on hand and they're they are the driving force behind the range. So all of that is good stuff and I'm hoping to have a chance to meet you.

Speaker 1: 1:36

Well, I began this process a little over eight years ago. We have been doing the podcast I said like for seven, but it was a year-long project. We decided we heard about Bug Out Bags. We looked at some of the products, we looked at how they were being marketed, the information going with them, and said, no, we can do better. And so, as a community support, we, the group at the time decided it'd be a great idea to help support our friends, our family, and get folks involved in prepping in a positive way that did not involve emptying your wallets to a website and getting as I have told you in some previous stories these huge parachute-sized backpacks full of a lot of stuff you're never going to use or that did not work very well. We had plans for workshops, seminars, things you could attend, and we even got so far as reserving an auditorium at SOU. And then this little thing called COVID popped up. We started putting out the podcasts on a monthly basis. In fact it was, I think, every five or six weeks initially, and we ended up getting them to their present condition where they are a weekly activity, and we're kind of tickled about that. Our listenership has grown and that's all on you and thank you very much. Staff changes came and went, products continue to develop and those absolute essentials you just have to have today is still a point of contention.

Speaker 1: 3:14

Now there's been a lot of positive changes and I've always been a big proponent, for example, of solar power and solar generators, and I've seen the cost and the weight of these things come down dramatically. Well, capacity is going up, and that happened just this year. It used to be. If you didn't have a 1500 watt unit, you were pretty well out of luck. They're now down to 350, 500, and 750 watts and they last longer. You can get more recharges on each battery, and the solar panels you need to make them work have come down both in weight and in cost. I will tell you I have a 2,000 watt generator I think it is and that plus the panel to power it effectively. Now you can get one panel and in three days it'll recharge. Well, to recharge it in a realistically time you need about a 400 watt panel. That's a lot of weight. This thing was about a 200 pound package to schlep around, not really that practical, but it's coming down the cost and it's something that is now far more effective for you and for me and a lot of my listeners.

Speaker 1: 4:34

I'm a senior myself and a lot of our listeners are senior citizens. They look at this hundred pound battery, looking at me and going no, not going to happen. Well, it's no longer that kind of a problem, and these are some of the examples I'm talking about. Things have changed and I think they're changing for the better. There's also a lot less and I'm going to use the term BS out there. When I first started, you'd get these horrifically exaggerated claims and the market, the marketplace and the users that you and I. We called BS on that. We reached out to the manufacturers and said, hey, maybe on another planet, in another dimension, that's true, but you're lying to us. We want no part of you. We've seen people actually go out of business. I'm pleased to see the changes we've had.

Speaker 1: 5:24

I also think, while I have not covered everything, I've done a pretty good job in the past seven years of discussing what a bug-out bag was then, what it is now, how to get the most out of it and how to expand beyond the basic idea of just having a backpack you can grab when you have to run out of the house in the case of a fire or an emergency. We've tried to expand on psychological preparation, on the ideas on planning, on communication within the family and how to do this effectively using real-life experiences, things from the fire we had here in the Talmud area when we had an arson-caused fire, looking at all of the things that go into proper planning. Now it's as I do every year and if you look back you see there's always this little hole from around May to August. I take some time off for well, first of all, family, personal reasons. It's time for us to get out on the road, reconnect with ourselves and our personal goals. I also have been doing for the past couple of years a class at Southern Oregon University's OLLI Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, and that takes some time to prepare. I invite you all to get involved with OLLI and to either Zoom into the class or we do it in person. You can come on in and have a classroom experience. It's also going to be recorded and you can look at those If you can't make the class. The information is there and it's basics beyond the bug out bag class. The information is there and it's basics beyond the bug out bag. Each year it's updated and I got a big update a lot of heavy lifting to do for this year. So I'm doing my Ollie class.

Speaker 1: 7:16

The family's getting back together and I have made a commitment to get this program on to video as well as audio. I've got a top-notch cameraman and producer. That's my wife. God bless you, nancy. You are doing a great job and we are going to put this on one way or another. Also, I've taken on another crusade. I've been appointed the communication director for the Oregon State Tenants Association. It's known as OSTA, o-s-t-a and that's group. Well, they are focusing on tenants' rights and protection, especially for manufactured homes and marina communities. That project is in the work right now. I'm going to be doing a podcast for them as well, and we're doing a lot of things to get some changes made. I won't use this time to talk about that project, but it's pretty significant. So what does this mean? It does not mean I'm abandoning this. I am not going to walk away from seven years of effort on this. What it does mean is that you family have seven years of material to go back and review. When you log in on the main page, you're going to see a whole list of programs and if you scroll down, it goes back to 2018.

Speaker 1: 8:40

Now the first year year and a half is basically, well, the basics. We start with. What is a bug out bag? Why do you have a bug-out bag? We talk about home, car work, road, the basic ideas of 72 hours of survival and the fact that that has changed from 72 to now having at least a month. That's one of the big changes. It used to be. If you had 72 hours, you were golden. Well, now you are going to need at least a month's worth of supplies for each person. That's food, water, medicine, air filtration if it applies, as well as the planning, the psychological preparation and things that you need. So there is a wealth of information.

Speaker 1: 9:33

Over the past seven years, we expanded into some other areas. We spent a lot of time talking about Second Amendment rights. We talked about some of the problems with facing your fears saying its name nuclear conflict. That's scary as hell. We looked at ideas of supporting your local sheriff. When the Prop 114 thing came out, a lot of people got nasty and got angry at the local law enforcement because there were all these problems with background checks. It wasn't your sheriff's department. I said it, then I'll say it again I'm 100% behind our law enforcement people, specifically here in our county. They are working real hard to support you, to help us and to meet the requirements. So get your facts right. Support your local sheriff. This is the type of thing we like to do.

Speaker 1: 10:31

I'm going to continue to do these. It won't be as frequent. I'm probably going to go back to monthly, unless something happens, which in case, yeah, I'll be back like a bad rash. In the meantime, scroll back. If you have a favorite episode or you found something you really like, share it with me and share it with your friends. Drop me an email and I can call attention to those things here on the website. And hey, don't worry, your new information on new classes and class offerings are still going to be available when you go to the Refuse to be a Victim website. I have become really committed to figuring out a scheduling system which doesn't make people run screaming from the building. The last time I went into a deep dive on that, it was over two hours on the phone to GoDaddy. We got the problems fixed, but really Two hours, yeah. So there's a lot that I need to step back and change, update work on. So if you don't see a podcast every week, it's not because I've lost faith, it's not because I've lost interest, it's not because I've joined a cult.

Speaker 1: 11:41

We're here, we're out of the range, we're working for you and I think it's important to point out we've done this as a community service. We do not charge. You have never found a paywall or a PayPal button on the site, and that's because it's part of our commitment to helping you, the community, be committed to safety, be committed to education, be committed to responsible and ethical firearms use responsible and ethical firearms use. And beyond that, it's taking care of yourself, taking care of those most important to you. So I will be back periodically. Keep an eye on the website. I will put up little notices. I will let you know as things change.

Speaker 1: 12:30

And let's see what is today. Yeah, it's the 21st, so we're looking in May. If you want to look in May at calendars, the next class is on the 11th of May. Don't be left out. We've had a couple fill up all of a sudden. It's like whoa. So, whatever you do, register early. Look at the course listings we have.

Speaker 1: 12:52

As I mentioned, I think, last week, in addition to the concealed carry, there's a concealed carry mastery, and this is the position a lot of people find themselves in. I got my concealed carry. Now what? Well, this is the now what. Our home shotgun defense class continues to be one of my favorites. I've been shooting for over 60 years. I've been involved in a positive way in firearms since I was a young boy and I had an actual aha moment in the shotgun class. It's like you can teach an old dog new tricks, so we hope to have an opportunity to see you. Do tune in, do review those former programs and share them among your friends. Welcome your suggestions and we will have more information as it becomes available. Other than that, be safe out there. Keep your head on a swivel, keep hunting for facts they're like truffles, they're hard to find. But find real information and make good choices. Be safe. God bless, we'll be in touch. The preceding program was a presentation of Retired Guy Productions.