First of all, I applaud you for taking prepping seriously. Don't get discouraged. Foresight is a rare quality these days. Here are some things that I have found helpful in honcho-ing a group where I'm at. We spent a year where individual families assessed systems. Food, water, energy, clothing, income etc. according to the P.A.C.E. analysis as well as CARVER model. We did two or three of the categories (our list was much longer) at each meeting. Though the analysis was not always a clean application it got us thinking and showing up with more than just an appetite. You want your folks to be reporting to the group on the specifics of each category in their specific situation. This limited, but specific assignment gives folks something they can focus on and that is not overwhelming. This is way preferable to one conversational-narcissist-boyscout-know-it-all blabbing the whole time about a million things that everyone should have done ten years ago, bla, bla, bla. We basically got brutal on our own systems and it helped individual families see where they were most vulnerable and needed to make improvements. From there, change the focus individual families, to how the families fit together. How can we cooperate so one person's strengths or abundance of a particular resource can help someone else who has a dearth, etc. When you think you're ready, pull the main breaker and go a week without power as a group challenge. Or just turn the pump off and force yourself to move to your secondary water source. Doing simulations like this makes the training realistic. Instead of having one person take the weight of leading, have each family/member host a meeting. While they are hosting, they should open up their systems to the evaluation of the other members of the group, and also have them teach a skill while hosting. The added advantage is that by hosting, now you know where everyone in the group is located. Things like, how to filter water, how to process a medium sized animal, how to can, forage, repair clothing, make shoes, how to grow staple crops how to make a solar dehydrator etc. Another group requirement could be to establishing a secondary communications system and have a net that everyone checks into. This is going to require a little money investment which forces one to be more than a spectator, yet it is practical enough to be useful and easy enough to obtain. With headlines like the ones we have been seeing and the one that started this thread, I'd hope that folks that were not taking things seriously before, are starting to come around. Make sure your plan has space for latecomers, not everyone is gifted with foresight. I fully expect that when things get real, a lot of people that know me will be at my door. On that day, the last think you should tell them is, "I told you so." They already know it, that's why there at your doorstep. I plan on telling "those" folks that I have a few big projects that I need their help on in exchange for helping them out. Desperate people are going to need leadership. I always have agricultural/livestock projects I can scale up at almost any time of the year at the drop of a hat. There's no free lunch!
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