Bottom Line Up Front: I’m hoping to join my HOAs social committee with the hopes of pushing meaningful yet yuppy palatable events like Fire Department hosted Stop the Bleed, a bicycle repair clinic, Local Amateur Radio Club testing session, or Red Cross emergency planning. Events that provide people something beyond socialization.
With the well known woes of HOAs put aside for a moment, it’s worth considering one powerful tool their board represents: their distribution list.
Their email based distribution list can email literally a few thousand households; something the Fire Department and Amateur Radio Club cannot. My hope would be to act as a liaison between these established nonprofit groups, their activities, and members of the HOA.
In our neighborhood, these events are sometimes huge, like National Night Out, or so so like the can drive. There seems to be a positive correlation between participation and participant takeaways (beyond just meeting neighbors).
Does any have any experience in this realm? That is, usurping their HOAs social committee and its events to better prepare a neighborhood as we do here?
Please keep comments focused on emergency preparedness, specifically OP's question about leveraging the HOA apparatus to help make residents better prepared for emergencies. Comments that consist of complaining about HOAs are unhelpful to OP's question and will be removed.
I think it’s an excellent approach to increase the neighborhood’s abilities, resources and skills. Talk to a few around the neighborhood to see if they like the idea of these clinics, without mentioning prepping.
Just be like, hey. I want to help people out, so I’m thinking of joining the HOA so we can have these activities and to ensure the area is safe.
Thank you for the response. That’s my plan…never say the P word haha. I’ll come at from my perspective, as in what would interest me (and probably others).
An email went out saying their in “extreme need” of members. So I think there’s a chance of getting at least an event or two
Good ideas and…
To get attendance you need to have each event appeal to kids (both youth and adults alike)
So make it fun, interactive, not all educational
Same thing applies at Pack Meetings.
If it’s fun, novel, and people like it, just that tends to smooth over lots of issues.
Another idea…. Contact your local power company. Ours did a 20,000 V ish demo that fried hot dogs, launched big sparks, and took a trailer of equipment. Crazy impressive.
Another… our local USAF base trained medics. They put on a huge round robin exercise. Demo evac inside an on fire plane with smoke. Splinter removal practice from jello cubes. Wrap sprained ankles. Etc. you might have a nearby army medical unit
Huh. I had no idea the power company might potentially come out. We've had a lot of outages lately. First, a transformer blew with spectacular pyrotechnics according to those who saw it. It was so loud I thought a gas line had blown up, or maybe something at the nearby university, until I noticed my ceiling fan had stopped. 6 hour repair. Two weeks later it blew AGAIN. Four hour repair. Then they shut down the whole neighborhood for a scheduled 8 hour repair that thankfully only took 6.5. Light work for my power stations, but still annoying.
We could probably get a big turnout for an "electrical party." We'd have to include wine and pizza, or if it's morning, coffee and breakfast tacos. But we're a polite bunch. We don't shoot messengers. I think a lot of us would be there with bells on for a rep to discuss the electrical system, its capabilities and vulnerabilities, and also discuss ways people can minimize the inconvenience of outages.
My neighborhood civic club has a security committee and at the start of each summer, hurricane prep is one of the things we discuss. We don't have classes, which would be a fantastic idea, but we do have a newsletter and a neighborhood FB group, where prep is an annual topic, based in part on what we discuss at our meetings. It's a topic at our annual May Social, too.
So if you mention prep in the context of predictable disasters in your area (most people have them), I think you'd find people very amenable. And I'm going to bring up the idea of classes at the start of the next hurricane season.
My thought is to start with something you don't need to bring in an outsider to teach, so you can gauge community interest. For example (wheels turning here):
Hurricane Prep Party! Tips and Tricks! New to hurricane prep? We've got the answers! Experienced prepper? Come share your knowledge! Wine and pizza will be provided.
Whenever you include that last one, folks will show up, if only for the goodies. And they'll stay and listen out of politeness.
No HOA-specific experience but I'll share some things my neighbourhood/town has done that echo your ideas:
It's often said here that a community is one of the greatest preps to have, so I think even if an event is "just socialization" (card/board game/movie nights, pumpkin-carving, wreath-making, cookouts, book clubs), you're still building those connections.
I'm guessing this is more of a board thing than a social committee thing, but I'd find a way to ensure there's a robust neighbourhood emergency plan; e.g., muster station, telephone tree, identifying folks who live alone/need extra care, etc.
These emergency-related events sound super practical! I never knew HOAs could host events like this before.
My civic club hosts events all year round. The trick is to always provide food.
I'm feeling inspired to rejoin a committee now and get some practical things added to the schedule.
I was thinking coffee!
I'm loving the suggestions I've seen, especially a fix-it fair and first aid/CPR classes! You might also see if there is interest in sewing (Quilting, basic clothing repair, darning, embroidery), canning or food preservation (jelly/jam, beef jerky, vanilla--things the "yuppies" can see themselves giving as gifts). You never know who might grab you afterwards and say "Hey, so I've got a full canning set up, learned from my grandma" or "I make my own deer jerky because I go hunting at my uncle's place several times a year." And don't discount that mom who ONLY shops at Whole Foods. She might not just do it for clout, she might also be super into herbal remedies. There are A LOT of people who have taken "Don't talk about your preps" to heart and play the gray man VERY well!
HOA prepping is basically gray man prepping on hard mode. Keep everything low-vis - no obvious solar panels, water collection hidden, supplies inside not in the yard.
Your neighbors don't need to know what you've got. The good news is you're probably surrounded by people who'll be completely useless in a real situation, so the bar is low
LOL but true yes.
The potential downside no one has mentioned/thought of in this is also the fact that most of these HOA things are utterly hated by people with common sense. Oh they might play along or HAVE to play along lest they get a nasty note from Karen Lewinsoki about their grass being 1.5 inches too high, or a kids toy left out in the yard for a day, but in general these artificial government systems are universally hated.
How much hate? You don't know that. But being a "rep" for the HOA may not be the luxurious prominence you think it is when something happens. When things get bad, people tend to lose their shit. When that happens to them, they look for an outlet for rage- hell look around on the news every day you'll see this in action now. Some people have long memories.
Better to maybe be on the outside trying to influence Karen and the known "leaders" of the HOA versus being identified directly with them. You can influence a group without being a part of the group.
So what happens when someone with a long memory that remembers the HOA causing him some undue stress over something minor snaps in a bad situation? Karen Lewinski riding his ass with letters and knocking on his door over the 1.5 inch too high grass while his wife is in the hospital and he's carrying all that stress, or something similar. Now dude snaps and he might get violent.
I'm sure this sounds far fetched to the folks that never leave their houses, but in the real world people flip out and go to violence in .05 seconds often any more over the stupidest stuff. Now picture a world with no rule of law, better hope dude has some moral character keeping him from this, but maybe he's a moral relativist and justifies whacking out some of the HOA because his wife died? Now add in wide spread SSRI usage and the sudden withdrawal issues that come with that into the mix!
Anyone read Selco's book about what happened when Yugoslavia fell apart?? You should cause he details many accounts of things just like this. One day you are smiling and waving at that guy you barely know down the block, a few days later he's sniping at you. No theory, this has actually happened. And there is likely more division and angst in the US right now then there was in Yugoslavia.
Spray paint can fire extinguisher. These work on grease fires. A full size doesn't hurt. But one is cheaper.
Wrong thread maybe?
But I do have several 20 lbs fire extinguishers around the house.
Well someone has prepped. I will say the yellow powder ones make a mess.
They all make a mess. A mess is better than the alternative
Sounds like they're on the wrong thread, but hey, good topic. In addition to fire extinguishers, I keep a couple of fire blankets on hand. A friend who works offshore recommended them to me.
Was on the temu website today and saw lower cost fire extinguishers. As part of your fire department interaction, you might get some extinguishers to use and actually extinguish some contained fires.....maybe a patio unit like this link or an old grill someone is throwing away for a place to contain the fire.
https://www.acehardware.com/departments/outdoor-living/outdoor-heating/fire-pits/F003558?store=17691&gclsrc=aw.ds&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=20155428941&gclid=Cj0KCQiAyP3KBhD9ARIsAAJLnnZ_rMERzAqt3fpOUHT-pOTvQIF1LyxfGg0QmUU_SvgkT3cjxi24v3UaAkPjEALw_wcB&variationProductCode=4592531
For the radio thing, your local amature radio club will likely live to come in for a demo. They might even be able to do some classes and testing. Please do not leave out GMRS. There is no test and one license covers the family. This may be more appealing as the radios can be "electronic leashes" for mom and dad to keep up with the children and they make "portable GMRS repeaters". This may work for neighborhood news and informations, disaster preparations, and evacuation information.
Yes, I have a general amature license, but GMRS might appeal to more people.
A lot of fire departments have extinguishers in stock, just for demos and training, and will generally happily show and teach and let people try them out.
The bigger departments are fully able to refill them for pennies, as some of their bigger equipment has those on board too.
Thank you. As you can guess, 8 did not know. I expect many others did not either.
Its all good! Not many do. Firehouses tend to also be somewhere you can go if you feel like you may be having a cardiac event too! Or, just a place to cool off.
Firefighters love helping people, when they can! I'd suggest visiting them, and asking them how they can help :)
Last summer, our HOA hosted a Hula pool party in our neighborhood pool. They paid for hula dancers to attend and lead a class teaching hula. Fire performers. Lili and Stitch and Moana music from a dj. Grilled hot dogs and pineapple. It was very cool!