Tag: meetup

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Blacksmithing as a prepping skill

AvilI’ve always been interested in Blacksmithing, both as a link to past skills and as a possibly useful prepping skill. Early in 2012 I began looking into how I might be able to start learning this craft.

I quickly found ABANA, the Artist Blacksmith Association of North America. As the organization’s name might imply, most people doing blacksmithing today are doing it as an art or for ornamentation purposes. Through ABANA, I was pointed to our local Utah ABANA chapter, the Bonnevile Forge Council.

This local chapter has meetings on odd numbered months for its members and those interested in learning about the club and blacksmithing. These meetings are often centered around demonstrations of hands on projects. The club members try to make it less intimidating for newcomers who have never heated metal to 2000 degrees before.

I was able to attend the March 2012 meeting and meet many of the club members. I haven’t missed a meeting since. The next meeting for the club will be this coming Saturday in Provo and focuses on teaching forge welding. I hope any of you who are interested will be able to make it out. Please see the meetings link above for details.

If you are not able to make it to the meeting this weekend, the club president is hosting a short class on making flint strikers which will teach several basic blacksmithing skills. This three hour class will take place the evening of Wednesday, May 15, 2013. More information is here.

We recently posted about an all day introductory blacksmithing class taught by the club President and Mark Henderson, both accomplished blacksmiths. I was informed that the class filled up quickly, mainly due to interest from those who heard about the class through this site. I’d like to hear any feedback any attendees have on the class as well as gauge interest in additional introductory classes and other courses of instruction.

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Recap: Multi-City Cert Mock Disaster

Saturday I had the fun opportunity to join with other people at a multi-city mock disaster for CERT members.

Dividing up for disaster management

This event was sponsored by the Lehi CERT team, and they put a lot of work in getting this running.  Members from all over northern Utah County and Southern Salt Lake Counties got together and quickly had their hands full with a variety of disasters.  We had a UTA bus with smoke billowing out, and very hurt people, to a school with a massive disaster in the gym, as well as very small, dark hallways that made for difficult rescues.  Attendees had the opportunity to practice a wide variety of skills, often in far less than ideal situations. Continue reading “Recap: Multi-City Cert Mock Disaster”

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2012 Summer ERC Face to Face meeting and picnic

Many of our authors have their HAM radio licenses and participate in disaster planning and during real life emergencies such as the recent fires in Utah. Below is an invitation we received for an annual event coming up next month.

To the members of the Utah South Area, Emergency Response Communications (ERC) Lindon Facility VHF NET …

You are invited to the 2012 Summer ERC Face to Face meeting and picnic. This is a great opportunity to meet those you hear on the ERC Net and talk Face-to-Face. We will have a presentation on Jump Kits by Cory Reilly KE7NRV followed by “Fun with Radio”– please bring a radio and its manual.

So that we can plan appropriately we ask that you RSVP (if you are coming) via the form that will be sent to you. This will help us all coordinate the dishes. This year we will have grills fired up so bring your own meat or main course item and a side dish to share (salad, veg. tray, chips, drinks or dessert — somewhat organized pot-luck). Plan on enough for 2 to 4 times the number coming in your party.
Date: 18 September 2012
Location: Orem Windsor Stake, West Pavilion, 60 East 1600 North, Orem, Utah
Time: 6:30 PM (1830 hours) until 8:30 PM (2030 hours)

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June Gun Show Meetup

It’s been a while since we’ve had any public meetups, and I know I have a few supplies I need to top off on. So what a better chance to meet some other preppers than to get together at a gun show.

On Saturday the 16th a few of us will be attending the Rocky Mountain Gun Show. It’s always fun to browse the various shops, negotiate a few deals on supplies, and take some time to mingle with other folks. Let us know if you’ll be there so we can meet each other, and let’s plan on a 12:00 lunchtime at the crown burger across the street.

Following their link, you can pre-purchase tickets to avoid a line, and you can also get coupons for $1 off entrance.

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Powerless Cooking Event

Join us for an evening of free information on different options for cooking when the power goes out.  Representatives from great companies such as Sun Oven, Volcano Grills, Humless, and InstaFire will be combining with Jodi and Julie from Food Storage Made Easy to help you learn about these products as well as several free or inexpensive tools you can make yourself.  Come and enjoy free handouts, event discounts, giveaways and more!

Cost: FREE! Bring a friend!

Date:  Thursday May 10, 2012

Time:  7-9 pm (7-8 will be instructional, 8-9 will be Q&A at individual booths)

Location: 

American Preparatory Academy
12892 S. Pony Express Rd. (Just off of I15 and Bangeter)
Draper, Utah 84020

Click here for more details and to RSVP

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Utah Prepare Conference and Expo – Ticket Giveaway

Interested in a day of workshops focused on preparedness? Who wouldn’t?  Utah State University, BYU, and BeReady Utah have combined to host a day of classes and booths called the Utah Prepare Conference and Expo. Now, the title is rather similar to our name, but hey, it involves many groups that we rely on for well-researched information.

I’m really excited about this conference, in that it is *not* a sales machine. BeReady is the state organization charged with getting citizens ready for known disasters in the state, and it has teamed up with some of the best resources for preparedness around. Anybody who has done real research into local agriculture, animal husbandry, or food preservation has come upon materials published by the USU extension. They are the standard for food preservation testing in the country, and we love having them locally.

Of course, there are vendors there as well, so don’t fret about missing out on the “toys” and fun there as well, but the conference itself is not “consumer-first”, and that should mean a lot to real preppers.

Continue reading “Utah Prepare Conference and Expo – Ticket Giveaway”

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The Great Utah Emergency Preparedness Expo: April 6-7, 2012

Following up on last year’s very successful Emergency Preparedness Expo, a new preparedness based company Free Food 2 Go is sponsoring a preparedness event the first weekend this April. The expo will play host to a wide range of well know presenters in a variety of preparedness subjects as well as an expo hall for vendors, all at the UVU campus. This is the second year for this particular event which saw 1,500 attendees in 2011. This year the expectation is 2,500 to 3,500 attendees.

Free Food 2 Go, the expo’s overall sponsor appear to be a vaguely MLM/Co-op plan for food storage. As the sponsor, they will obviously have plenty of information prominently featured. However, if MLM sales pitches turn you off remember that while featured, they are just one of many vendors at the event. With the number of vendors and experts on hand this should prove to be a great chance to get hands-on with many of the suppliers and products discussed here on UtahPreppers.com and in other preparedness circles.

Continue reading “The Great Utah Emergency Preparedness Expo: April 6-7, 2012”

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Utah County Amateur Radio Emergency Service New HAM night tonight!

HAM Radio
HAM Radio

I received this email announcement from a HAM Radio friend.

For any of you who

  • have recently received your amateur radio call sign
  • are thinking about getting it and want to know more
  • you’ve had your call sign for awhile but never really been introduced to the UCARES organization

This is a good event. You can meet some of the organizers and people who’ve been in it awhile, and talk to them about what the organization is all about. Runs from 7 – 8:30PM.

More info here
put your mouse over the New Ham Night on the right.

Directions

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Group Stove Test: First Thoughts

UtahPreppers stove test
UtahPreppers stove test
Several of the stoves getting setup

Last weekend several of the UtahPreppers got together with some friends to begin doing some hands on tests to start preparing for winter. Recently several of us have acquired new stoves and we wanted to give a conduct some tests to compare how well they worked. For our first meet up we wanted to test a few stoves and other devices with the group. While we learned a lot we realized that we’ve got some more comprehensive tests to run through before we can highlight each of them adequately. But before we move along with the individual tests, we wanted to thank some of the people that helped make this first stove test so much fun and informative. Continue reading “Group Stove Test: First Thoughts”

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Community Preparedness Fairs

Local first-aid company Shield-Safety is hosting two community preparedness fairs and wanted to spread the word to different preparedness groups and companies that might be interested.  If you are looking to attend, the dates and locations are as follows:

Lehi:

Sept. 16th 5 pm to 9 pm
Sept. 17th 9 am to 7 p

Herriman:

Sept. 30th 5 pm to 9 pm
Oct. 1st 9 am to 7 pm

Both events are free for attendees, and will feature first-aid training classes, and other opportunities to learn preparedness skills.

If you are interested in hosting a booth (vendor or community) we have a copy of the information you need here for download. The hosts have stressed to me they are very eager to work with all community resources such as CERT, safety officials, and other local companies.

[download id=”9″]

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Provo Pioneer Crafting Fair

Looking for a chance to get the family out into our delayed summer? Provo has a great event this weekend at their pioneer village (map).  It’s a great chance to get demonstrations on some old skills such as spinning, blacksmithing and more.  Bring the family even if only just to get a feel for the local history, but even better, hang around and talk shop with people experienced in their crafts. This is probably one of the better local opportunities to get together with people that can teach these crafts.

When:

Saturday, June 11, 2011

10:00 AM – 2:00 PM

And a nice video explaining things via the local newspaper, the Daily Herald