The person volunteering to be your captain does this as a service and is not necessarily someone who is trained or who will be available to help you in an emergency.  Rather, the captain simply facilitates the group in coming together to plan out in advance how everyone can help each other get prepared and be ready to help each other in time of need.  It’s also best to have a  co-captain who can function when the captain is unavailable.
    Ideally, your Group of 10 should meet together 2-3 times a year (or more often if needed) to assess everyone’s preparedness status to plan out ways to help each other.  Below are some suggested  ideas of what you could discuss and do to help each other in your Group of 10:

 • Make sure every person in the group understands how the neighborhood plan works and knows where the
  staging area is and when to assemble there.
 • Fill out the page with all important contact numbers and information  (& give me a copy for the master list).
 • Discuss who needs help filling and rotating their water barrels and jugs and plan how you  can help each
  other accomplish this.  (Water needs to be rotated yearly.)
 • Discuss which people in the group might be best suited for which jobs after a disaster:  first aid, search and
  rescue, child care, organizing group medical supplies, communications, transportation, setting up a
  sanitation station and a shelter, organizing water and food for rescuers, being the CERT/NEST team leader.
  Since we don’t really know beforehand who  will be available in an emergency, no permanent decisions can
    be made, but it’s nice to get  an advanced feel for who is best suited for which capacity.
 • Occasionally go through the Group supplies stored near the staging area to review what ‘s in them and see
  what might need to be rotated, added to, or improved upon.
 • Make sure everyone has a gas wrench tied to their meter and knows when and how to use it.
 • Plan how you can help each other get your water heaters tied down.
 • Make a list of critical needs and medicines for each family.
 • Discuss sections of this emergency notebook and help each other understand what to do for different
  scenarios.
 • Discuss the benefits of updating tetanus boosters and maybe and of getting a once-in-a-lifetime pneumonia
  shot (for those over the age of 55).
 • Update the Group list of who has an alternate heat source (such as a wood burning or keorsene stove) and
  fuel storage and how much (such as wood or kerosene), and discuss how you might improve the fuel
  situation for your Group before a crisis hits (i.e. who might be able to store  more wood, etc.)
 • Discuss in advance of a serious power outage how your Group might best relocate families to homes with an
  alternate heat source.
 • Discuss how you can best watch each other’s homes for suspicious activities and participate formally or
  informally in Neighborhood Watch.

    Besides occasional Group of 10 meetings as discussed above, the Neighborhood participates in two annual communications drills which help Groups of 10 to continue functioning and which helps everyone in the neighbohood to remember where their Staging Areas are.  The first of these is the annual Flag Day Communications Drill (which is a communications drill combined with Group of 10 parties) held on the Thursday evening closest to Flag Day, June 14th.  The second is the annual Pennies-by-the-Inch Communications Drill, which is a Stake drill combined with an opportunity to raise money for Primary Children’s Medical Center.  This is usually held on the Saturday preceding Halloween.  (See the specific information on each of these drills later on in this notebook.)