This past Saturday Benedictine University (Lisle, Illinois) offered our “What 2 Know B4 You Go!”TM workshop to an audience of 35 that included a member of the University’s board, several homeschool moms and their children, a former student of our Ancient Skills Weekend Workshop and his two daughters, and an assortment of other interested and enthused folks. Benedictine was trying to educate community members in the basics of outdoor preparedness and simple survival techniques. And judging from the participation of the audience and their response to the workshop, the university accomplished its goal.

As we have come to expect, everyone in the room paid rapt attention to the true-life stories told by Tim & Ron. And later many participants commented on the effectiveness of the story-telling technique. One mom called it “very informative…[your] stories made it easy to remember course content” and another inquired about doing the program for her son’s Scout group.

The younger folks thoroughly enjoyed building the skeleton of a primitive shelter while parents and university staff snapped photos of the fun. Discussions about water gathering and demonstrations of several types of fire-starting techniques exposed both young and old to the basics of wilderness survival.

A huge rain storm at the end of the day did not dampen the enthusiasm of the departing students.

Here are some of the comments the University received in its follow-up evaluations:

Rate your overall experience:
“A+”
“10/Excellent”
“Extremely valuable information”
“….Thank you for putting this program together.”

Expectations:
“Met and exceeded expectations. Great use of stories to make their point!”
“Information was relevant and useful, longer than I expected…audience interaction made it more interesting.”
“Good basic information, appropriate for age group.”