Hi members, friends, and visitors,

After quite a few months of other projects taking precedence, I’ve finally started the update to the latest software tools for our website here. We’ve just updated this site to Wordpress 2.5.1, and updated all of our plugins as well.

Chat will be coming back online shortly, with a better secured version, and we’ve looking at upgrading our Message forums to a new and difference package. More on that later.

Current tools, as we’ve got installed and updated as of tonight, give us audio and video players built into our website, and many new tweaks. Future tools to be installed over the next month include store management software to handle the Survival Papers, photo gallery software for us to share years worth of our projects, new video productions that will appear here on the site, and also be available for download, or on DVD, and many new and cool things.

We’re also setting up a new members only section on the website for managing tons of new content. The information on how to use this will appear in one of the next few newsletters that get mailed out.

So, stay tuned, and thanks for your long time support of Live Free, and this website.

Rich
SIte Administrator, Live Free Publications Director

Updated pages. As of 12/28/2007 I have updated the following pages:

“Events” now lists the 2008 programs as they are scheduled at this time

“Survival Stuff” has a number of new items added

“Live Free Report” now has the most recent issue posted

“American Preparedness Survey” now has the results of the 2-year survey.

 We are looking at ways to provide you with on-line training programs and our new electronic publication “Choices for Survival” one of the few books that looks at the psychological and philosophical aspects of personal and human survival in the 21st century.

SURVIVAL CHALLENGE 2008 SATURDAY MAY 3rd, 2008

Tippecanoe River State Park, Winamac Indiana(in the Patawatomi, Group Camp) 

Training Activities Start at 8:00 AM and Run Through 6:00 PM

 Advanced Registration Before April 15^thIndividual $20.00, Family $30.00, Add $10.00 for a cabin Registration After April 15^th or At The Site

Individual $25.00, Family $35.00, Add $15.00 for a cabin

Group Rates Available

SCHEDULED PROGRAMS

·         Emergency Medical Procedures

• Selection, Preparation and Storage of Emergency Foods

• Emergency Equipment and Evacuation Packs

• Water Purification and Storage

• Biological Hazard Defense and Decontamination

• Emergency Sanitation Methods

• Home and Wilderness Fire-craft

• Survival and Rescue Ropes and Knots

 Certificates of “Preparedness and Good Citizenship” will be awarded to all who complete the program 

Contact; Live Free, USA, P.O. Box 375, Dolton, IL 60419

lfinow@aol.com

From the Presidents Desk

   We are at a very critical point in the development of Live Free, USA.  We have reorganized and we have the best “core group” since the early 1980’s.  We have increased membership and the level of activities.  But we still have difficulty getting the American Survivor out on time even 6-times a year and membership outside the Midwest is less than it was in the 1980’s.  Some of our founding members are ready to retire, but newer members are not stepping up to take on the challenges.  Live Free, USA is the oldest and most respected survival and self-reliance advocacy organization in the USA (maybe the world).  We defined the philosophy in the 70’s, defended it in the 80’s and maintained it through the 90’s until it is now “main stream” accepted thinking.  We should be moving towards becoming a major organization with paid staff and a formal office and/or training center.  We are moving in that direction, but we could also fade way.   Live Free, USA was created in the 20^th Century, but it is obvious that its primary mission is to save life and freedom in the 21^st Century.  There simply is no comparable organization with our mission.   The next 12 to 18 months are critical.  We cannot simply continue our current level of actives, publications and funding.  We must grow exponentially and develop a whole new core of officers, instructors and organizers.  Look at our mission.  Think about how important preparedness and self-reliance are to the preservation of independence and freedom today and tomorrow.  Think about what will happen to the unprepared and the dependent as the predictable economic, political and environmental events impact future generations. How important can Live Free, USA be? 

IT ALL DEPENDS ON YOU!

As you will see on the LIVE FREE REPORT page, I was reelected President of Live Free at the annual meeting in May. I have updated the Live Free Report Page and the events pages.  You will see that we have two great programs in Indiana next year.  There has not been much initiative by members to put on programs in other areas so far.  We do hope to have video DVDs of the May 2007 training programs so that those who could not can see the great training programs that were presented. We are still struggling to get the newsletter out on-time, even with the new format and we have shut down Survival Papers even though we have dozens of great new papers we could add. And yes, we could do more with thise site, but there are just too few of us trying to do too many things.  Membership is growing, but unless some of those new members jump in to do the paperwork and computer tasks we will stall. You can e-mail me at survivorjj@aol.com. Suggestions are not welcome. Only offers to help.  

Hi folks!  It’s been a while since I did any updating of the site because of all the other Live Free tasks I have.  We really do need some more active officers! We also have had some problems that made a mess of the site several times. So instead of improvements we spent time fixing problems.  We are going to make a few changes that should make things better, but for now I just updated a few things.  I put up a new Survival Stuff page with lots of interesting information.  I updated the Next Events page to show more about the May 5-6 survival-training program in Indiana.  I placed the first issue of our new newsletter AMERICAN SURVIVOR on a page by that name.  Unfortunately I hade to place a temporary suspension notice on the Survivor Papers page because this program is shut down due to lack of anyone to do the work.

We had a major issue this past week with the website, with a massive, MASSIVE influx of unregistered users using our chat room, with over 6,300 of them in the database.  Let me just say that there was evil afoot, with a global reach.

I’ve removed the unwanted users…ALL of them, locked the chat directory with a password, will be installed the very latest version released today, and will publish a full report in the next newsletter about the events this week.

We’ve had the same problem with the phpbb message board, and I removed over 260 spammed users. I’ve recommended to Jim that we upgrade to a more powerful message forum as well.

So, at this time, the site is fine, but I’ll be doing program updates over the next couple of days.

If you notice any other site problems, please let me know.

Rich
Publications Director, WebMaster

First and foremost, the CHAT ROOM is fixed and upgraded.

Also, many new site tools have been installed and setup, including a new photo album package, completely integrated into the blog, a management tool for upcoming podcasts by Jim and other members, a translation tool, anti spamming tools (we get a lot of spam attacks on the site), a site visitor statistics tracker, a polling tool, a social bookmarking tool, and an Amazon product tool for upcoming reviews of products and books.

More to come, and the upcoming newsletter is getting prepped.

Rich
Publications Director

Live Free, USA Is Tax Deductible!
 
  Live Free, USA is incorporated in the state of Indiana and is exempt from Federal income tax under section 501c (3) of the Internal Revenue Code. We are qualified to receive tax-deductible bequests, devices, transfers or gifts under section 2055, 2106 or 2522 of the code.  Members and supporters can now help our cause and get a tax deduction.  Please keep us in mind.  We will gladly prove you with the necessary documentation for the IRS.