Break Time:Looking Back at Seven Years of Progress

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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.

Class Information: Refuse to be a Victim Personal ProtectionTraining

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

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Our first podcast aired on October 1st 2018, and
boy has a lot happened sincethen.
Come on, in family, it's timefor a meeting.
Well hi, everybody, and welcometo Survival Beyond the Bug-Out

(00:23):
Bag.
I'm Bill Bateman, your host,part of the team at Refuse to Be
a Victim Personal ProtectionTraining.
We are located, in case you'veforgotten, in the Medford-White
City area of Southern Oregon.
That's at 6800 Kershaw, andthat's where Kershaw and Corey
come together in that reallyobnoxious turn.

(00:45):
So we look forward to havingyou come on out, even just to
say howdy and, believe it or not, somebody did that this week.
They looked around, checked outthe facility, talked to us,
bought a season pass, and we'regoing to be seeing them again
next Saturday.
So this is a serious invitationand if you happen to be

(01:05):
visiting from the Midwest we'renot hard to find you can contact
us via email and let me know.
Maybe I'd be able to come outand say a hi howdy to you or
hook you up with any of ourother group of really skilled
and helpful range officers Philand CJ, of course, are always on
hand and they're they are thedriving force behind the range.

(01:29):
So all of that is good stuffand I'm hoping to have a chance
to meet you.
Well, I began this process alittle over eight years ago.
We have been doing the podcastI said like for seven, but it
was a year-long project.
We decided we heard about BugOut Bags.
We looked at some of theproducts, we looked at how they

(01:51):
were being marketed, theinformation 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 tohelp support our friends, our
family, and get folks involvedin prepping in a positive way

(02:12):
that did not involve emptyingyour wallets to a website and
getting as I have told you insome previous stories these huge
parachute-sized backpacks fullof a lot of stuff you're never
going to use or that did notwork very well.
We had plans for workshops,seminars, things you could

(02:34):
attend, and we even got so faras reserving an auditorium at
SOU.
And then this little thingcalled COVID popped up.
We started putting out thepodcasts on a monthly basis.
In fact it was, I think, everyfive or six weeks initially, and
we ended up getting them totheir present condition where
they are a weekly activity, andwe're kind of tickled about that

(02:57):
.
Our listenership has grown andthat's all on you and thank you
very much.
Staff changes came and went,products continue to develop and
those absolute essentials youjust have to have today is still
a point of contention.
Now there's been a lot ofpositive changes and I've always
been a big proponent, forexample, of solar power and

(03:21):
solar generators, and I've seenthe cost and the weight of these
things come down dramatically.
Well, capacity is going up, andthat happened just this year.
It used to be.
If you didn't have a 1500 wattunit, you were pretty well out
of luck.
They're now down to 350, 500,and 750 watts and they last

(03:44):
longer.
You can get more recharges oneach battery, and the solar
panels you need to make themwork have come down both in
weight and in cost.
I will tell you I have a 2,000watt generator I think it is and
that plus the panel to power iteffectively.

(04:07):
Now you can get one panel andin three days it'll recharge.
Well, to recharge it in arealistically time you need
about a 400 watt panel.
That's a lot of weight.
This thing was about a 200pound package to schlep around,
not really that practical, butit's coming down the cost and
it's something that is now farmore effective for you and for

(04:31):
me and a lot of my listeners.
I'm a senior myself and a lot ofour listeners are senior
citizens.
They look at this hundred poundbattery, looking at me and
going no, not going to happen.
Well, it's no longer that kindof a problem, and these are some
of the examples I'm talkingabout.
Things have changed and I thinkthey're changing for the better

(04:52):
.
There's also a lot less and I'mgoing to use the term BS out
there.
When I first started, you'd getthese horrifically exaggerated
claims and the market, themarketplace and the users that
you and I.
We called BS on that.
We reached out to themanufacturers and said, hey,
maybe on another planet, inanother dimension, that's true,

(05:15):
but you're lying to us.
We want no part of you.
We've seen people actually goout of business.
I'm pleased to see the changeswe've had.
I also think, while I have notcovered everything, I've done a
pretty good job in the pastseven years of discussing what a
bug-out bag was then, what itis now, how to get the most out

(05:39):
of it and how to expand beyondthe basic idea of just having a
backpack you can grab when youhave to run out of the house in
the case of a fire or anemergency.
We've tried to expand onpsychological preparation, on
the ideas on planning, oncommunication within the family

(05:59):
and how to do this effectivelyusing real-life experiences,
things from the fire we had herein the Talmud area when we had
an arson-caused fire, looking atall of the things that go into
proper planning.
Now it's as I do every year andif you look back you see

(06:21):
there's always this little holefrom 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 onthe road, reconnect with
ourselves and our personal goals.
I also have been doing for thepast couple of years a class at
Southern Oregon University'sOLLI Osher Lifelong Learning

(06:42):
Institute, and that takes sometime to prepare.
I invite you all to getinvolved with OLLI and to either
Zoom into the class or we do itin person.
You can come on in and have aclassroom experience.
It's also going to be recordedand you can look at those If you

(07:02):
can't make the class.
The information is there andit's basics beyond the bug out
bag class.
The information is there andit's basics beyond the bug out
bag.
Each year it's updated and Igot a big update a lot of heavy
lifting to do for this year.
So I'm doing my Ollie class.
The family's getting backtogether and I have made a
commitment to get this programon to video as well as audio.

(07:25):
I've got a top-notch cameramanand producer.
That's my wife.
God bless you, nancy.
You are doing a great job andwe are going to put this on one
way or another.
Also, I've taken on anothercrusade.
I've been appointed thecommunication director for the
Oregon State Tenants Association.

(07:45):
It's known as OSTA, o-s-t-a andthat's group.
Well, they are focusing ontenants' rights and protection,
especially for manufacturedhomes and marina communities.
That project is in the workright now.
I'm going to be doing a podcastfor them as well, and we're

(08:05):
doing a lot of things to getsome changes made.
I won't use this time to talkabout that project, but it's
pretty significant.
So what does this mean?
It does not mean I'm abandoningthis.
I am not going to walk awayfrom seven years of effort on
this.
What it does mean is that youfamily have seven years of

(08:27):
material to go back and review.
When you log in on the mainpage, you're going to see a
whole list of programs and ifyou scroll down, it goes back to
2018.
Now the first year year and ahalf is basically, well, the
basics.
We start with.
What is a bug out bag?

(08:47):
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 factthat that has changed from 72 to
now having at least a month.
That's one of the big changes.

(09:08):
It used to be.
If you had 72 hours, you weregolden.
Well, now you are going to needat 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, thepsychological preparation and

(09:29):
things that you need.
So there is a wealth ofinformation.
Over the past seven years, weexpanded into some other areas.
We spent a lot of time talkingabout Second Amendment rights.
We talked about some of theproblems with facing your fears
saying its name nuclear conflict.

(09:50):
That's scary as hell.
We looked at ideas ofsupporting your local sheriff.
When the Prop 114 thing cameout, a lot of people got nasty
and got angry at the local lawenforcement because there were
all these problems withbackground checks.
It wasn't your sheriff'sdepartment.
I said it, then I'll say itagain I'm 100% behind our law

(10:12):
enforcement people, specificallyhere in our county.
They are working real hard tosupport you, to help us and to
meet the requirements.
So get your facts right.
Support your local sheriff.
This is the type of thing welike to do.
I'm going to continue to dothese.
It won't be as frequent.

(10:34):
I'm probably going to go backto 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 episodeor you found something you
really like, share it with meand share it with your friends.
Drop me an email and I can callattention to those things here

(10:56):
on the website.
And hey, don't worry, your newinformation on new classes and
class offerings are still goingto be available when you go to
the Refuse to be a Victimwebsite.
I have become really committedto figuring out a scheduling
system which doesn't make peoplerun screaming from the building
.
The last time I went into adeep dive on that, it was over

(11:18):
two hours on the phone toGoDaddy.
We got the problems fixed, butreally Two hours, yeah.
So there's a lot that I need tostep back and change, update
work on.
So if you don't see a podcastevery week, it's not because
I've lost faith, it's notbecause I've lost interest, it's

(11:39):
not because I've joined a cult.
We're here, we're out of therange, we're working for you and
I think it's important to pointout we've done this as a
community service.
We do not charge.
You have never found a paywallor a PayPal button on the site,
and that's because it's part ofour commitment to helping you,

(12:02):
the community, be committed tosafety, be committed to
education, be committed toresponsible and ethical firearms
use responsible and ethicalfirearms use.
And beyond that, it's takingcare of yourself, taking care of

(12:24):
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 thingschange.
And let's see what is today.
Yeah, it's the 21st, so we'relooking in May.
If you want to look in May atcalendars, the next class is on
the 11th of May.
Don't be left out.
We've had a couple fill up allof a sudden.

(12:45):
It's like whoa.
So, whatever you do, registerearly.
Look at the course listings wehave.
As I mentioned, I think, lastweek, in addition to the
concealed carry, there's aconcealed carry mastery, and
this is the position a lot ofpeople find themselves in.
I got my concealed carry.
Now what?
Well, this is the now what.

(13:07):
Our home shotgun defense classcontinues to be one of my
favorites.
I've been shooting for over 60years.
I've been involved in apositive way in firearms since I
was a young boy and I had anactual aha moment in the shotgun
class.
It's like you can teach an olddog new tricks, so we hope to

(13:33):
have an opportunity to see you.
Do tune in, do review thoseformer programs and share them
among your friends.
Welcome your suggestions and wewill have more information as
it becomes available.
Other than that, be safe outthere.
Keep your head on a swivel,keep hunting for facts they're
like truffles, they're hard tofind.

(13:55):
But find real information andmake good choices.
Be safe.
God bless, we'll be in touch.
The preceding program was apresentation of Retired Guy
Productions.