What are your prep goals for 2014? Let's share and encourage each other to keep prepping and learning!

Medical

I'd like to get more medical training. Currently I have certification in Wilderness First Responder & Red Cross First Aid/CPR/AED. Depending on my budget, time, etc., I'm considering an EMT class, the PRN Med "Medical Responses on Hostile Environments" class, and/or a class on gunshot wounds. (I've done a one-hour trauma class, but I'd like to do more.)

Now, does anyone know about the PRN Med class? The PRN Med curriculum seems to cover a lot for a weekend course. Some people on the M4Carbine forum expressed skepticism about the instructors and the contents of the course. I'd like to know what you think. I'm wondering whether there would be some overlap between the EMT and this course.

Communication

I still don't have my HAM license. I really need to get around to it!

Wilderness Survival

As some of you may recall, I found a survival instructor locally. He offers some short weekend classes, and I'll get a better sense how far I can go with him.

I'd also like to get more outdoor time, but let's see if my job lets me (yeah, right).

*And* if I have extra time after that (yeah, right), I'd like to do a search and rescue class. My state has some sort of certification requirement for volunteers.

Defensive

I've gone through "basic" and "advance" firearm courses. I'd like to do moving through structures and tactics. Fortunately, my life is safe enough that all this stuff is really just a very remote "just in case." It's looking more like a hobby than anything else.

I think I'm getting close to the point when I'll replace my original ACR PLB.

I need to wire a generator connection (transfer switch) in my house. I've got the generator, but not the connection. Not trying to power continuously - mostly just need to be able to power water and septic system pumps - so the amounts of fuel needed are relatively small.

One of the goals would be to reduce the amount of things and instead of focus on quality both in equipment and training. Basically the less is more approach.

Also do more fun things. Preparedness is great, but you still can´t decide when you die. So make most out of it.

Bingley... if you are looking for a good shooting hobby, check out the USPSA pistol and 3 gun competition locally....it's been a great 30 year hobby...3 gun will quickly sort out your equipment, and improve your gun handling skills...

Medical: I'd love to take the WFR course. It's very doubtful that I'll get this done in 2014. Given how long the class is they'd have to offer it locally on evenings and/or weekends for me to consider it any time soon.

Communication: Gotta get my HF shack working, and preferably also mobile 2M rigs for both cars. We have HTs in each car now, which is better than nothing.

Wilderness survival: I could swing a bushcraft class if I could turn it into a fun camping trip for the family. I'll check into that.

Defensive: I spend more time, effort and money here than preparedness would dictate -- I have too much fun with this hobby to cut back . I've stepped up my pistol instruction side business and as a consequence I've been able to sign up for a two-day tactics class from a higher-level instructor. There's a second class in 2014 that I'd like to take; let's hope I can fill some more of my classes and be able to pay for it that way. I'd love to find time and money to resume martial arts training.

At home: I'm in pretty good shape here. In my mind, short-term emergencies are three days or less, medium term run from three days to two or so weeks, and long term is anything longer than that. We're well prepared for short and medium term emergencies and I've made a conscious decision to not spend a lot of effort on TEOTWAWKI scenarios.

Transportation: Both of our vehicles are older but very reliable. If things change financially I'd like to get back into a 4x4, but that's probably 2015 or 2016 for me.

Gear maintenance: I'm a fanatic; I have a designated Battery Charging Day every month, I unpack and repack our BOBs three or four times a year, and all of our FAKs are kept filled with expiring meds replaced. The cars are both maintained religiously -- if there's one prep that I think a lot of people miss that shouldn't, that's it. I'm a little behind on sharpening my EDC knife and that's it.

Body maintenance: Last year I ran my first two half-Marathons and a number of shorter races. Our winter running group is about to start again; my goals for 2014 are to improve my half-Marathon times rather than to run longer races.

Planning: I've got pre-planned actions for given scenarios but I haven't written them down well enough for my wife and daughters to execute them in my absence. This is probably the number one area that I could make a significant improvement in our preps, by putting together more written plans and checklists to make things easier if I'm not home. I'm taking next week off from work; this can be my little project for then.

Medical: I did the Wilderness First Aid course this year and while I'd love to take the WFR course, like Chaos indicated, it's too long and not local. If the opportunity happened, yeah I'd really like to take that course. I'll keep my FAK's up to date and maybe imrove them a bit. When bad things happen you won't have enough 4x4's.

Gear: The sleeping bag thread has me looking at a down bag. Otherwise, I have lots of gear.

Move: I'm seriously considering Bugging Out from SOCAL. If things went wrong SOCAL is not really a good place to be trying to bug-out from. Better to bug-out way early. More later if this happens.

Medical - Have taken several introductory First Aid classes, very basic level stuff, so would like to try to take more First Aid training. As a plus this ties in with my involvement in the Boy Scouts too.

Shelter - DS and I have new hammocks, we'd like to try some hammock camping this spring and summer

Fire - Just made my first batch of char cloth last night, amazingly easy to make, wish I had tried it sooner (will definitely make more soon as this batch was used up in a fire-starting materials gift bag for the scouts and scouters in the troop), working on perfecting 3 techniques of matchless/lighterless fire starting so when the time comes we will be ready to teach that part of the wilderness survival merit badge

Water - still need to get a good water filter, and plan to set up grey water collection barrels this summer

Signaling - need to practice with the signal mirrors

Communication - very weak in this area, need to start looking into this more, for starters need a PLB or something comparable in case of an emergency in the wilderness, also need to look into the ham radios for long distance emergency communications, and i'd really like an NOAA weather radio that has battery, crank and solar power options

Wilderness Survival - got the gear, got the knowledge, time for some testing in relatively controlled settings; really excited about this after taking a BSA course on matchless fire starting, and seeing how easy it was to start a fire with a flint, steel and charcloth (with a bird's nest of fluffed up twine)

Defensive - another weak area, plan to take a CCW class and hopefully take a bit of training as well

Gear - got lots of good stuff and extras, now it's just tweaking and filling in the gaps as mentioned above, gear for keeping up with the Boy Scout adventures is taking priority

Other - Need to step up the home preps, tried getting DW involved, but to no avail, so gonna have to see to it myself I guess, maybe get DS more involved so he will feel less anxious about excessive rains and flooding in our area

Sounds like a great reason to buy that STI 1911 in 9mm! I know competition improves mechanics, but I feel like the gaping hole for me is tactics. I don't know how to move through a house, go up/down stairs (can you even survive that?), get through doors, etc.

I poked around some more on PRNMED, & found two people on a survivalist forum who have done the course. One loved it. The other was unimpressed, saying EMT training would be better. I'm thinking that if I'm going to do EMT, I probably won't do PRNMED's course. Also, looking at their curriculum, they really do seem to squeeze a lot into the weekend. I spent quite some time practicing improvising splints in the WFR course, and I got better as a result of all that practice. I'm guessing you can't make the course shorter without losing something.

True. But unless you get into a door-kicking role with the military or a law enforcement organization, much of what you need to know is gun handling and effective use of cover. This is not to discourage you (or any other law abiding gun owner) from taking tactics classes. I do.

Interesting.

I have never heard of PRNMED so I googled it. I looked at their curriculum and application. My impression, based on that, is that they seem to cram a lot of rather advanced stuff into a short course. That might be OK for students coming in with previous background such as WFR or EMT. But they don't seem to have any prerequisites, and I'm a bit skeptical they could do a good job of covering all that advanced material with students who are coming in cold.

Having done both WFR and EMT basic, my opinion is that if I could only do one, it would be WFR. EMT covers a lot of stuff related to ambulance work that won't be so useful if you aren't working in that setting. One thing you might get in EMT is a bit more emphasis on medical issues like cardiac, COPD, acute abdomen, etc. WFR covers that stuff as well, but tends to focus more on trauma. EMT tends to assume you have all the toys available and will rapidly transport to an ER, but doesn't much cover working in an austere or improvised environment, or a long term care setting. At least that was my experience. Like I said, I think most folks on this forum would find WFR more suited to their needs.

One thing to check into is your states licensing/certification regulations for EMT. In Alaska, anyone can be certified as an EMT-1 (same as EMT-B in most states). You cannot be certified in Alaska at higher levels (EMT-2, EMT-3, Paramedic) unless you are working in a service (ambulance, VFD, etc) with a supervising physician. In some states I believe you must be part of an official service even to be an EMT-B. WFR is not an officilly recognized certification by the State of Alaska. This is changing somewhat, however. I have been able to count my WFR recert course as CE for my EMT-1 recert. That brings up another point. You might want to ask the PRNMED folks how they handle refresher training. Medical skills are perishable. To keep my WFR and EMT-1 cards current, I have to do recerts every couple of years. I think even WFA now has recert requirements to keep current.