Solidarity Prepping

Meeting Report - 1 November: How do we organize power?

Let's find out what knowledge we have among ourselves and start spreading it around.

David B.

03 Nov 2025 — 3 min read

Dear friends,

Thank you to the 27 people who attended the meeting of the Preparedness Support Group on 1st November, and to the dozen more people who were at the prior meeting but couldn't make it this time.

We are a powerful group! We have a huge amount of expertise, experience, and energy among us. The fascinating question is: How do we organize our power so that we can all benefit, and so other people we haven't met yet can benefit as well? It's not an easy question!

My first attempt was not correct! My system of "Operations" and "Projects" is creaky and formal (perhaps reflecting a particularly male attitude to organization? 😳 ) It does not capture the essence of what the group is and who is participating. I learned this by listening carefully to what you said—what people are offering and what people need. There is a lot on both sides, and the challenge is to connect them.

To make the connection, I suggest that we should establish "pods": small groups of people who are interested in a given topic. People who know something about a topic and people who want to know something about that topic can get together, and the knowledge can flow in a natural mingle.

For example:

Kat S. has worked in water-treatment for decades. She and other knowledgeable people could be in the "Water" pod, and people who want to learn about water treatment could ask questions and get useful answers.
Jimi C. was a soldier, and lived out of his backpack for weeks at a time. People who want to know how to put together a "Bug-Out Bag" could join him and others with useful knowledge in a "Bug-Out" pod, and get the real story.
Several people mentioned their concerns about "personal safety" in a lawless time. There could be a pod to talk about that, and if we don't have any experts in the group, we could go find some!

I think it’s a nice picture: The "pods" could be part of our meetings, as breakout rooms. They could be implemented in the email discussion group as sub-groups. They could give structure to the "library," with each pod having a place to put references and resources.

If this idea seems good enough to try, then I’d like to know what pods you want. In particular, I'd like to know:

In what pods could you be a knowledgeable source of information?
In what pods would you like to learn from people who have knowledge?

Let's find out what knowledge we have among ourselves and start spreading it around. And if there are topics that we're interested in but no one knows about, we can go looking for experts.

Please indicate your interest in pods and topics in a comment on this post, in the Signal group, or in an email to me. I'll collect the suggestions, and at our next meeting we can pick the pods we want to start with.

Coordinates:

The next Zoom meeting of the Preparedness Support Group is Saturday, 15th November, at 11am Pacific time. More information will be forthcoming.
To join the email discussion list, visit https://groups.io/g/preparedness-support
To join the Signal group, click here.
To read the blog, visit https://action.collapseclub.com

See you soon!

❤️ David B.

P.S. Here's a list of topics that have come up in our meetings so far. It is not in any way definitive! Just keeping track...

TOPICS