Hello, I'm hops_scout. I just joined the other day. I'm 15 years old and involved in the Boy Scouts of America. I've become interested in survival training and SAR over the last year or so. I'd also like to become and EMT in a couple of years.

I design websites for various organizations as well as my personal site. It can be found at http://www.htc.net/~hopper

I hope that I find a lot of great stuff here.

Hello! You should talk to forum regular Bil Vann. He's involved with scouting and in ILL.

Me, too (Scouter in IL). Welcome, Scout! There are some REALLY knowledgable folks who are very nice about sharing their firsthand experiences.

Tom

What part of the state? I'm 15 minutes from downtown STL.

Way up the river from you - Rock Island. Bill Vann is even farther away, in the NE part of the state. One of these days Bill and I are going to run into each other at an OA event or something... (Bill, I'm going to Morris this weekend for Section Conclave...) There are other folks here at ETS in IL, one of whom is active in SAR and not terribly far from you to the East (Vermillion County, IIRC).

Sorry I overlooked you Tom. Maybe we should get one of those programmes with a world map that allow people to put symbols near their locations. Ak-47s for survivalists defending the American economy, footprints for ultralight environmentalists, rusting trucks for survival instructors, the scout symbol for scouts etc. <img src="/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

hey ! don't forget burgundy bottles for Frenchies ..... <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Good morning,

well I don't know if you can be a member since you are a fan of Cardinals... <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> But all kidding aside. Welcome, hope you stay for a while, enjoy yourself, ask questions, participate and let me complement you on your website. Cheers mate,

1) Hello, hopsscout .... welcome abord...
2) sorry to hijack your thread but
I guess Polak187 wants to stress the importance of redundancy in survival gear, which is a good point......

But all those corkscrews on the same handle are not a good example. You loose it, you loose all your options.

You should rather EDC different types of corkscrews :
- standard pig tail
- dual blade (no screw)
- air pressure "corkscrew" (no screw either in fact)
- endless screw
- collapsible corkscrew
- "butterfly" corkscrew
- and so on ...

that's real redundancy .... <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Welcome to ETS

My uncle's got it right... he lives out in PA but is a huge Cardinal fan as well!:) I've found a SAR team in my area, but it's like an hour away and they wont let minors do very much at all. We'll see.

I actually got reccomendded to stop by here off of a Boy Scout website (SCOUTER.com for you Scouters out there)

hey hopsscout :welcome! welcome! its great to have young folks use this terrific site .....spread the word to your scouting buds and your scoutmaster....enjoy...vince g. 11b inf..

welcom ! good to see more young folks here, makes me feel a little older, if i remeber correctly i once was the youngest here...

First of all welcome to the site <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />.

You may want to check out to see if there are any Explorer units in your area that focus on Public Safety such as SAR. I know that there are many across the country, as I have helped out at a number of large events held at the National Fire Academy here in Maryland. Pete

Welcome!

Pete, I actually emailled the Police Cheif in my town to in an attempt to start an Explorer Group at the Department. So far, he hasnt gotten back to me. I'm still waiting;)

You may want to try a local Fire and/or EMS company, if the PD is not forthcoming. Pete

I don't know how it works in the States, but instead of sending emails, would it not be much more "efficient", to actually go and talk to the PD or FD Chiefs ?
(if it's not too far away...)

I am a fan of Emailing, because it's supposed to be as fast as a phone call, with the advantage of being less disturbing and with all the advantages of a written letter (permanence, posibilituy to delay the answer...
OTOH, nothing replaces direct human contact.