Baby, it's cold outside...

Next week, December 4-10, 2011, is National Influenza Vaccination Week (NIVW). It is a time for everyone to reflect on the importance of protecting ourselves and our loved ones from the complications of influenza “flu”.

The “flu” as it is most often referred to, can be a serious respiratory illness and even deadly to the very young, the very old and those with chronic medical conditions. At Chasing4Life it is important to us to respond to others in the face of a disaster….well, the influenza season is its own form of a winter disaster, a gift from Mother Nature every year. YOU need to prepare with a “flu disaster kit”…. An easy way to stay healthier this winter…. Because, “Baby it’s cold outside!” Family and friends will be gathering for the holidays and you don’t want to be the one sharing the flu!

Our safety elves have already “checked it twice” and know you’re on the “nice” list. Start protecting yourself today with the Flu Disaster Kit holiday shopping list:

1. Don’t let the flu get you! …Get a flu shot:

Stay healthy and ready to party with the kids when the Santa comes to town! CDC (Centers for Disease Prevention and Control) recommends that everyone 6 months and older get vaccinated against the flu. No longer are there all kinds of age restrictions. Over the last few years and even more so since the H1N1 “Swine Flu” outbreak in 2009, scientists have learned more about the value of “community immunity” and protecting the public from this serious virus.

2. Be a scrooge! Keep your germs to yourself! Use the 3 C’s: Clean, Cover & Contain:

Clean Hands! It is the number one, easiest and cheapest way to keep germs from spreading to others. Keeping hands clean by either killing the germs with (alcohol-based) hand sanitizer or by washing the germs down the drain with soap and water. Keep a bottle of sanitizer in your pocket, in your car, wherever you go and use often! Wash hands frequently when dirty!

Cover your cough – every cough, every time! Coughs spread germs through the air in a tiny wet mist of droplets. Cough germs spread to your eyes, nose, or mouth and on typical household surfaces CAN make you SICK. Keep those germs to yourself by turning your head away from others and coughing into your elbow area. Germs can spread from coughing even when you are feeling better! Have a lingering cough from a cold or flu virus? That cough can still spread germs, sometimes for weeks after your first felt ill!

Contain germs – many ways! In the trash can and stay home when ill!

Contain germs in the trash can! When you use a tissue, immediately throw it away into a trash can and then clean your hands with hand sanitizer or soap & water. Once you have germs on your hands,you can move those germs to other surfaces where they can survive on surfaces for hours. Many of these germs can be innocently picked up by yourself or the kids by touching something as simple as the TV remote, the bathroom or refrigerator door handle or the light switch. The germs then transfer from your hands and then to your eyes or nose with a simple rubbing or itching motion. Voile`! You have just provided the germs a happy new home and you feel ill in 24-48 hours.

Contain germs at home! Whether you work or go to school, stay home when ill! Do not struggle in to work or school as a “walking wounded” only to share those germs with others who will then be sick with YOUR illness in a few days.

Well, you’ve done your Flu Disaster Kit shopping and now you are trying to get the rest of your family to do the same….. What are their arguments?

Joseph complains: “I always get sick from the flu shot!”

Your answer for Joseph: Nope, Joseph, not possible, the flu vaccine contains a “dead” virus. Getting the flu shot merely motivates your immune system to develop resistance to the strains of flu for each specific year. And, yes, you must get a flu shot every year as the strains of flu virus change from year to year! So, Joseph, if you’ve gotten sick after the flu shot, this just means that you already had germs in your body and they made you sick about the same time you got your flu vaccine.

Mary complains: “I don’t like shots!”

Your answer for Mary: Now, if you have a great fear of “shots” Mary, then ask your doctor if you can “pick your nose”? The FluMist nasal spray vaccine may be the right choice for you as this is not a shot in the arm but a brief spray of vaccine up your nose. But there are things to consider when choosing FluMist – first, it is OK for healthy, non-pregnant persons aged 2 through 49 years. It’s also a live vaccine that’s been designed to not cause flu illness, but still have your body develop immunity. You will likely feel ill for a few days… need to prepare for that while taking care of your newborn son.

Cousin Elizabeth complains: “I don’t need the flu shot, I just need a cure for diabetes ‘cuz I want to eat Christmas sugar cookies!”

Your answer for Cousin Elizabeth: While the scientists are working to help you with your diabetes, they HAVE found a way to keep you and your loved ones safer during the winter flu season by developing the flu shot so people like you with a chronic illness can still enjoy the holidays together with your family!

This year’s flu vaccine is an overall good match of the flu strains moving around this season. Good news! This means that approximately two weeks after receiving your flu vaccine, the risk of developing significant illness from influenza is lessened because you’ve developed immunity to the flu. Each year thousands of people die due to complications of the flu. Getting the flu is serious, and even life threatening, to many people. It is extremely important for the health of the community for as many people as possible to become vaccinated. Just think of how many more days parents would have for summer vacation if they hadn’t had to spend a week at home with an ill child in January? How much easier it is for kids to go to school and learn in a healthy environment instead of their classmates coughing in their faces? What about your 3 month old baby at home who you decided to keep in a home setting and not in daycare? Well, if your second grader is not immunized, then she will likely be bringing home all those school germs to your infant. People are so quick to blame others, but the reality is, that they are part of the problem if not protecting themselves and their family members from the flu.

With flu activity increasing and family and friends gathering for the holidays, now is a great time to get a flu vaccine to protect yourself and your loved ones! It is not too late....prepare today!

Creating a BUFFER between your business and disaster

It was a scary night and the sounds of sirens kept you and your family awake. Luckily, your home sustained minimal damage, but upon arriving at the office, you realize that the problem there is much larger. Trees are down, power lines are down, and it appears that a portion of the office building has been damaged and water has damaged much of the interior. It could be weeks before things are back to normal.

More and more, businesses are writing continuity plans for just such a scenario, and the obvious focus needs to be on back-up systems, communication and order fulfillment… but there’s a problem…

You built this start-up company of yours from the ground up. You read every article, created a plan and your social media marketing campaigns literally built your customer base! How do you maintain that momentum while dealing with everything else? Half of each day for the next week you’ll be trying to dry out your file cabinets while attempting to find contractors! Don’t forget, internet around town is going to be difficult to access as well.

Using social media marketing is all about connections and momentum. Each day, businesses experience success simply because they have used social media to build their customer base and they have maintained that customer base by faithfully keeping up a level of momentum.

Now, for the next two weeks, your FaceBook Page will be a ghost town. Your Twitter will lay dormant. Momentum is gone while you recover from last night’s storm. You could lose followers, lose business, miss connections and opportunities and worse yet, lose months of hard work.

As a disaster preparedness educator and emergency response consultant, I am continually looking for that one solution to problems like this. In order for something to be a solution in my world, it has to be simple, affordable and easy to use. Buffer is that solution.

While you are inundated with the daily woes of rebuilding, recovering, reconnecting, restocking, re-ordering and well, let’s face it, re-thinking, Buffer can maintain momentum for your company behind the scenes. Your customers may never know you took a hit!

During a recent hospitalization, my clientele never even knew I was “out-of-the-loop”. Simple instructions given to my assistant along with my Buffer account password kept my social media campaign alive for over a week! I’m a Buffer-Believer.

According to the Business Institute of America, 25% of all businesses caught up in disasters do not reopen. Over the years, I have interviewed hundreds of business owners throwing in the towel after a disaster not because of poor insurance coverage, but because the thought of reconnecting with their clientele or customer base would “just take too long”.

Getting back to business after a disaster depends on preparedness planning today. Acquiring a simple Buffer account can secure your social media campaigning in the wake of a disaster and can easily be used by you in short bursts or can even be delegated to support personnel outside the disaster area until you are able to take the reins again yourself.

The folks at Buffer have created perhaps one of the easiest, most affordable business continuity protection tools available today without even knowing it. In a world that now thrives in a social media world, there is a way to stay alive even when the “real world” isn’t online.

Find Buffer

Cahokia's Kids and our philosophy on learning

If you are a parent of kids who go to school, you have probably heard many times expressions like "I hate homework", "I hate school" or "I don't want to learn". I have several children myself, and believe me, we’ve been through this a thousand times.
As a program coordinator or even a volunteer for an organization, it is easy to fall into the trap of supplying entertainment for kids simply because your educational events don’t go over well; it is probably because those educational events resemble that “school learning” and the “draw is certainly not going to be as great as that of a magician, a haunted house or a pizza party.
Here’s the truth: learning is harder when you do not understand WHY you should learn, how you learn and what you gain from learning. Unfortunately, most kids do not know what happens to them in the process of learning, so they only see the pain associated with it, instead of the pleasure. There is a reason why Chasing4Life programs are not only popular, but SUCCESSFUL, and by that, I mean that children RETAIN what they are taught at these events, and they actually are motivated to become educators themselves.
The brain
Our brain has 100 billion cells. Each cell carries a single thought, experience or feeling. This single thing, which the brain registers as an experience, moves in the brain the way electricity flows from the power station to your house.
We do not use all the cells we have in the brain. Some people say we use only a small portion of the brain, others say we use a bit more, but everyone agrees there are plenty of brain cells we do not use. Everything you do in life helps you use more of the cells in your brain. When you play, sleep, eat, laugh, cry or learn, you use more cells in your brain. The theory then? DO MORE STUFF.
When the same experience happens again and again, we no longer need to learn it - we do it automatically. Take walking, for example. At first, you need to concentrate on sending the right messages from your brain to your legs and back and you still wobble and fall down. But after some practice, you do it automatically - you no longer think about it. It is easy. The system I created years ago when I founded Chasing4Life is the same teaching system I use to this day and it is embedded in the Cahokia’s Kids Programming: repetition. People will ask if their child can attend only those programs in the series that sound interesting to them, but with this system we are using, each program overlaps the next, repeating lessons learned and intertwining them with the next lessons being taught. Each program begins with a review so the repetition is constant throughout the year.
How successful is this? We have children in Junior High School now that can still, to this day, repeat the severe weather facts they learned in First Grade at Chasing4Life programs!
“We need to be smarter”
We have a lot of phrases that the kids learn throughout the programs. One phrase is, “We need to get smarter”. The brain is like a machine that needs oil. Learning is that oil. The more you oil your brain, the better it runs. If you want to be smart, you need to make sure your brain works all the time. Every new thing you learn and repeat until it is automatic makes your brain machine faster and smarter. When you are talking about disaster planning and preparedness, you need to be able to operate like a machine quickly and there is no time to try to re-engage your brain last minute.
If you want to use your thinking brain more, you have to do more of the things that make you happy. If you need to learn something that is important to you, do it in a way that will make you happy. The Chasing4Life programs are fun, they relate to current events, they cause families to interact, and they are FUN. Remember, when you are happy, you remember everything.
So, if you have not done so yet, visit www.cahokiaskids.com and check out a new and exciting way to learn.

Winds of change

Texas oil tycoon H.L. Hunt was indeed a man who knew how to make a decision. The proof is in the fruit. He ended up a TYCOON.

Hunt once said, “Decide what you want, decide what you are willing to exchange for it. Establish your priorities and go to work.”

For years, operating Chasing4Life has been a labor of passion and love. Knowing that we were changing lives, knowing we were reaching massive amounts of people with a message that could save their lives all kept us going. Unfortunately, the financial end lacked. Several years ago, we decided to venture into the world of disaster response; the idea came easy as we saw need, and decided to meet it. We had no business plan, no financier, just a will to do the work.

The same happened when we saw the opportunity to present an I.C.E. Application for iPhones. The same happened when we got involved in animal rescue. The same happened when we began to create educational training DVD’s.

Now, none of these ventures came to us in the middle of the night or in visions. The calls, the requests, the inquiries and even sometimes the begging all came from people. When we presented the I.C.E. Application, it was because literally over 100 of our friends and clients said it was a great idea that they could support. When we got into disaster recovery work, it was because literally dozens of community leaders and church leaders said it was something they could get behind and support. When we began to create training DVD’s, it was because incredible numbers of agencies and organizations were requesting them.

But then there is reality. The check was always in the mail, but never arrived.

The I.C.E. App has been recreated because of the lack of support. We are taking it to a new market. The training DVD's are being distributed by a distributor. The TV show is being re-produced for a new market and a new network. A whole new staff for the C4LDRT will be announced by Christmas.

To those who never showed? We're still going...without you.

It is now November, and as the famous song says, the “winds of change are blowing”. A coldness is creeping across the country, changing the way people react, dress, operate, travel, plan and work. The same is happening at Chasing4Life.

Over the course of the last three years, we have “partnered” with many people and organizations only to find that the momentum was all ours. Many companies and organizations we have partnered with have yet to take their first step in cross-marketing, support or involvement. Simple Google searches pull up these “partners” who, some of which, have not even updated their websites in a year let alone have they thought to post something in the social media realm since the first months of the year. Momentum is non-existent, connection and communication seem to be all but vanished.

And then there are the people. The volunteers, the instructors, the administrators, the coordinators. So many that wanted to hitch themselves to Chasing4Life, yet as it was revealed, in name only to bolster other agendas.

With hundreds of thousands of school children educated in disaster preparedness, hundreds of agencies trained and tens of thousands of families reached, no matter what your opinion of the method, Chasing4Life has been a force to be reckoned with and our influence has travelled around the globe.

Now, as the winds shift outside, they shift inside as well.

As the new year approaches, we know that the needs are going to be great. Disasters are increasing, schools are beckoning more than ever. Agencies are looking for more of the quality Chasing4Life has presented in the past, and the time has come to follow in the words and footsteps of H.L. Hunt and make decisions, establish priorities, and get to work.

The new year is bringing a whole new application process for our C4LDRT volunteers and staffers. The arrival of the new mobile command unit has brought with it opportunity to serve like never before, but we have chosen to man not only the vehicle, but the entire organization with only those dedicated to training, serving, protecting and sacrificing. We are only going to consider those willing to answer the call.

Our sponsorships and partnerships will be similar. No more can we afford to spend time and effort on those with no momentum, no passion, no vision and no dedication. Companies and organizations alike will have to have their own momentum that they bring to the table; and a plan as to how to combine it with the power, momentum and reach of Chasing4Life.

As for our staff? So many have voiced concern that their careers are not lucrative enough, that there has been no real explosion of their popularity, no real increase in demand. With over 700 programs presented this year by only three of our instructors, we will leave this portion of the conversation with one statement: If the grass seems greener on the other side of the fence, it is perhaps because they maintain it better over there…

It is a year for change. The Mayans could have been right, after all, which means we have 12 months to leave our mark. If they were wrong, then this will be the year that changes Chasing4Life forever. We will reach more, teach more, save more, fix more, respond more, love more, laugh more and last longer.

Now, why the change?

It is because of the advice of the wise few. Tim. Chris. Theresa. Jeff. Hearts tuned to what we do and where we are going. It is also because we have a responsibility to be good stewards of what has been given us by Baron Services, HiViz, FoxFury, and NUPLA. Partners that have proven they understand partnership and the word “support”.

To those of you that have been that support? There is no way to ever thank you enough.

Why the change?

Because it’s time to take this whole thing to a new level.

The future's in the air
I can feel it everywhere
Blowing with the wind of change

(Scorpions-Wind of Change)

If the Mayans were right...

A few months ago I had the opportunity to visit Cahokia Mounds State Park on the outskirts of St. Louis. Never heard of it? I am not surprised.
The Cahokia Indians lived in St. Louis long before Lambert was built; long before the floods of the 90's. Long before the Arch. They lived (and died) in St. Louis from 800-1400 AD.
For years I have wanted to experience the Mayan temples and pyramids in Mexico, but as I had never gotten there, with 2012 quickly approaching, I went to Cahokia Mounds... a Pre-Columbian settlement right in the heart of America.
As I walked the grounds with my son, Jonathon, we talked about what their life must have been like and wondered what connections there were to the Mayan culture. Much of it was similiar.
With all the "hoopla" about 2012 being the end of the world, I wanted to see if there was "spiritual experience" I could have with my son, so we climbed to the top of the Priest's Mound, and stood still listening as if we might hear some spirit speak to us...
It did.
Here is what I heard:

"We lived a long time ago and we know you have forgotten us. Most of you do not know we ever existed, and so you attribute much of your history to the American Indian that hunted buffalo and battled the white man, but we were before that...
We lived here. Ate here. Farmed here. We had no science to speak of, no weather radios, no television, and so we lived here without any knowledge of where we were or what we might encounter.
We settled here against the banks of the most powerful river, built huts and temples here on top of the New Madrid Earthquake fault, and we experienced powerful twisting winds that destroyed all that we built every couple of years...swirling forces that came with no notice.
And now we are gone. There is nothing here bu some broken pottery, a few stone tools and these mounds...
Learn from us..."

Okay, maybe I did not hear a voice, but that is what I heard in my mind.

I did my research. There are a lot of explanations as to where these people went, but each one is as good as another, and so I added my own theory... these people lived in the worst disaster area I could think of and never had a chance.

Now, in 2012, we are launching our new "Cahokia's Kids" Disaster Preparedness Series of programs. This series will not only replace our 2010-2011 Scouting Series, but will offer the opportunity for ANY children to participate. We will teach about the Cahokia's. We will speculate as to what happened. We will look at how we can be better prepared for the future...

The Mayan Calendar never said life would end, folks... it said that the TIME would end. What time? Well, it could be that time we live in now where travel is easy, gasoline is available, homes have heat and electric and there are groceries available at every corner market. Maybe they are right... maybe the TIME in which we live will end and will find ourselves thrust into a new time where those who were prepared will stand on their mounds and watch cities crumble.

I hope not, but it makes you think doesn't it? After all, at some point, there were these Cahokias...

Check out our new pages at www.CahokiasKids.com

Everyone can go...somehow

As the 9-11 Anniversary has, for the most part, arrived, members of the Chasing4Life team have found themselves in Joplin, Missouri. The airwaves are literally full of images, videos, recordings, TV specials and talk shows all focusing on the events that shook this country ten years ago, and the atmosphere in Joplin is one of resolve, of remembrance, and of hope.
The country has certainly come together, at least mentally, as the media and the calendar have offered us all something to focus on together.
But there is a lot more going on in this country right now other than an anniversary.
It is this weekend that Joplin will focus on service, with volunteers in the thousands descending on the city to work and to rebuild. It is this weekend that Texas will continue to battle against hell's flames in a drought-stricken nightmare. It is this weekend that already-weary eyes along the eastern seaboard will watch tropical storms that will bring more wind, more storms and more misery. It is this weekend that states like Pennsylvania will hope no lives are lost in flood waters as residents watch their dreams and hopes wash away.
It is this weekend that we need to do more than watch the 9-11 specials on cable. It is this weekend that our efforts need to be more than hanging that flag on the porch. It is this weekend that churches need to do more than add The Star Spangled Banner to their morning worship service. It is this weekend that we need to realize the call to act, to support, to go.
Over the course of the last several years, we have seen so many disaster strike this country, and yet, as our teams watched these disasters, the reality was always present that the support was not there to always respond.
Social media has become a great revealer.
We watch as our friends, our families and even some of our partners have posted continually disaster after disaster about how they "feel horrible", how their "hearts break" and how they "wish they could help", but yet the pleas for support go ignored. Please directed at those specific people...
Now, I realize not everyone can go. I realize not everyone can give. I also realize everyone knows someone.
Two weeks ago we received a call from a woman that has, for a full year, told us repeatedly she was putting together support efforts for our response teams... she called because she was finally caught up in a natural disaster and wanted to know if we were deploying and was requesting help. How were we to get there? We had the volunteers ready to go, but due to lack of support had no ability to deploy them...
One of our teams have been inundated with requests to respond to a ravaged area, but those requesting the deployment, when asked to assist us in finding housing when we arrived, seemed almost indignant because we asked.
One of our partnering organizations has never hesitated to call us around the clock to have us assist them in monitoring severe weather for them during deployments, but yet for 6 months we have awaited simple returned calls regarding our requests for help from them.
All this is to bring up a point.
While Chasing4Life is a wonderfully successful educational organization that provides life-saving educational programming across the United States, the Chasing4Life Disaster Response Teams are made up completely of volunteers. The gear carried and used by our members is paid for out-of-pocket or from companies that believe in giving back to their communities. Most of our members have jobs, families and other responsibilities just like everyone else, but everytime a disaster occurs or looms on the horizon, they call in, make themselves available, and then they wait... for you to help them use their training and passion.
And as to that training; these volunteers have become or are becoming highly trained responders because when not deploying, they are enrolled in courses, taking classes and attending training exercises.
As we enter this 9-11 Anniversary weekend and a weekend of service in Joplin, it is time to ask yourself: "What have I done to respond? What have I done to ensure that there are teams that will deploy when it happens to me? What have I done to help others go in my stead?
It doesn't have to be C4LDRT that you choose to assist, but it has to be something, somebody, some organization. To sit and watch events unfold day after day on the television without responding SOMEHOW is not how America was formed. It is not how it grew. It is not how lives were saved during Katrina. It was not how lives were saved during the 9-11 attacks. It was not how lives were changed in the Iowa floods.
Everyone can go somehow.

Are YOU ready for the ride of your life?

C4L announces new campaign in Dorothy tradition

Hudson, IA. Chasing4Life has become a leader in disaster preparedness education across the United States over the years and nobody will contend that we owe much of this growth and popularity to “Dorothy”.
For several years, Chasing4Life’s founder, Eddy Weiss, toured the country in Dorothy, a fully outfitted storm chase vehicle visiting hundreds of libraries, schools, churches and organizations with a message about disaster preparedness.
Three years ago this month, Dorothy was donated to the Sci-Tech Children’s Museum in Aurora, Illinois where she still continues to thrill and to teach.
The popularity of Dorothy and the connection that she made was incredible. Dorothy became an icon that was recognized by families across the country and the Chasing4Life office still receives letters for her every month.
2011 has been a year of disasters like none we have ever seen in the United States and many have referred to this year as “the ride of their life”. It has been statements like this that have inspired a new preparedness campaign to follow that of Dorothy’s.
Chasing4Life is excited to announce that in January of 2012, we will launch Chasing4Life’s “8 Seconds”. This new preparedness and training campaign will feature new programs with a new theme. You will see new instructors, a broadened scope of programming, and a tremendous increase in trainings for fire departments, emergency management agencies, law enforcement agencies and disaster response organizations.
Like the original Chasing4Life “Dorothy” campaign, this campaign will have its motorized spokesperson as well; our new Mobile Command Unit “8 Seconds”.
The campaign is inspired by how quickly lives were changed in 2011 and by the drama and popularity of rodeo; particularly bull riding.
“Our family has always loved the rodeo,” explained Weiss recently. “As the year progressed and we watched these disasters unfold, interviewed the victims and aided in recovery, we were overwhelmed at how fast lives were changed by disaster. It can all be gone in less time than it takes a rodeo star to win a buckle…less than 8 seconds!”
The new campaign will be themed around the “8 second ride” in bull riding.
“A bull rider is judged on many things, but it all comes down to their actions during that 8 second ride…and of course, they have to stay on the whole 8 seconds!” said Weiss.
“Disasters are often like that bull charging out of the chute,” he explains. “It is raw power, and it is just you against him at that point. It all comes down to how hard you have trained and how determined you are.”
The new campaign will feature the release of a special edition of the “Red Book”, a disaster preparedness guide that Chasing4Life has sold for the last two years. New DVD’s will be available as well as Chasing4Life will focus more on training programs for agencies and response teams as well.
At the center of it all?
The new Mobile Command Unit will begin to go through modifications over the next two months to make it a vehicle that rivals Dorothy according to Chasing4Life staff. This vehicle will be used by the Chasing4Life Disaster Response Team (C4LDRT) in disaster response deployments, but will also make special appearances at events, festivals, fairs, shows and conferences in the tradition of Dorothy’s travels.
The command unit will feature a rodeo theme and is a converted ambulance that will be used to set up and monitor disaster response operations, severe weather situations and mobile communications.
“We’ve got our boots on and we’re ready to ride,” stated Brandi Hodgen, the Chasing4Life coordinator that will operate the unit in the field. “We cannot wait to roll this out and start this new campaign. The message is great, the theme is great and we think the people will love it”.
Plans are being made to partner with new sponsors for the new campaign and the staff at Chasing4Life is already talking about new coloring books and the possibility of a music video as the campaign progresses into the new year.