THE SELF-RELIANCE FESTIVAL
October 1 & 2
Take control of your future. Master new things.
ONLINE TICKETS AVAILABLE
TICKETS: $75
LOCATION: 4631 Highway 70 E, Camden, TN 38320
GATES OPEN AT: 8:00 AM
Join us for presentations, demonstrations, vendor exhibits, community, and fun activities!
The Self-Reliance Festival at Special Operations Equipment gives you a close-up view of both strategic and tactical skills. The many thoroughly practical demonstrations include emergency medical training, blade sharpening, aquaponics, homestead veterinary tools and techniques, marketing your side gig, 3D printing, cryptocurrency, defense dogs, and permaculture design.
PAST PANELS & PRESENTATIONS
Self Reliance Festival is currently accepting applications for our October event. Below is the list of presenters from June 2022. The updated list of topics, presenters and demonstrations will launch Mid-Summer, 2022.
Underground Networking 2.0
Nicole Sauce
When times get tough, go-getters activate their existing networks to spread word, find solutions, and restart life. Learn what’s going on and how to hop aboard the get-it done train.
Chicken Tractor on Steroids
Billy Bond
Learn to raise all of your eggs and meat while producing a cubic yard of the world’s best compost per week… for free!
Build Your Empire While Theirs Crumbles
Jack Spirko
Claim your rightful place in the world of money. Homesteading and self-employment are the same as working for salary: they’re real jobs.
Justice and Entrepreneurship in a Time of Incompetence
John Willis
No one knows how to make a serious topic both deep and engrossing the way John Willis does.
Proper Human Diet
Dr. Ken Berry
Eat right, and your health will improve. Keep it up and you’ll be fit and frisky.
The Importance of Community
Bear Independent
People and why you need them
Security
Division of labor
Intelligence gathering/correlation/distribution
Quality of life
Confessions of a Homesteader Wannabe
Josh and Thomas Carpenter
From city clickers to homesteaders. Our failures, what we’ve learned so far that people who weren’t raised on a homestead should know and what our plans are to move forward.
Financial Self-Reliance
Gabby Hundley
Learn digital marketing for your new business in the age of censorship. Discover easy and accessible ways to set up a website and marketing funnel so you can transition potential customers from social media to an ecosystem you have more control over.
When to Call the Vet? Annual Care and Prevention for your Animals
Dr. Nakeita Fowler, DVM
Annual overview of caring for your animals. When normal ain’t normal… and when to call the vet or seek emergency care. Demonstration for restraint and other backpocket skills.
Be Prepared, Not Panicked
Panel Discussion
Billy Bond, Nicole Sauce, Jack Spirko, John Willis
When you hear “Bad times are coming!” – smile. With your own common sense and advice from these four experts, you’ll be prepared to thrive in good times and bad.
Tactical Training for Homestead Defense
Joey Glover and Dana McClendon
Mindset, tactics, skill, and gear appropriate to the defense of one’s homestead
Medicine: Easy Until It Isn’t
Jake Drumm
After the accident, incident, or illness, what should you do during the next 72 hours, 10 days, or for the rest of the person’s life? This demonstration approaches medicine from an operational handling point of view.
Protection K9s
Joel Ryals
In many situations, just having a gun is not enough. Adding a Protection Dog to your defense makes you, your family, and your home safer. Joel will be demonstrating his dog’s capability at the end of this presentation.
Exit and Build Financial Strategy
John Bush
WORKSHOP: Process a Pig
Billy Bond
This 4 to 6-hour workshop will teach you how to convert mature pigs to table food. You’ll learn dispatching, hanging, preparing for cutting-up, butchering, and wrapping for the freezer. On Saturday, the pork will reappear as BBQ.
PAST DEMONSTRATIONS
Medical Treatment Center
Chuck Peoples
Learn what’s really needed in a comprehensive medical kit and how to use the equipment. From trauma supplies to simple boo-boo supplies, do you know what you should have on hand? Get acquainted with critical medical gear and get hands-on training.
Hand Tool Rehab
Kerry Brown
Learn how to choose, use, rehab, and maintain your hand tools – pruners, axes, mauls, shovels, hoes, garden forks and so on. See the Vendors list: Kerry can repair and even return ailing tools to service (bring them along).
Sharpening on the Homestead
Patrick Roehrman
So many farm tools work easier when sharp. Master knife-maker Patrick Roehrmann explains what to do, then starts you on your sharpening career. In front of your very eyes, he will cut hair with a well-sharpened knife.
Water Is Wealth
Matt Hundley Watch and learn techniques for building water catchment tanks that are affordable and simple. Plus, by the end of this demonstration, you’ll understand the basics of finding and using water on any piece of land.
Knitting Corner
Lani Johnson
Pick up needles for the first time and take home a project.
Experienced? Bring your work in progress.
Demonstration: Navajo knitting. If you can, bring 50g or so of any DK, fine, or fingering weight yarn and US 7, 8, or 9 needles. Cast on 45 stitches, knit a row, and we’re ready to go.
3D Printing
Drac Thalassa
3D printing knowledge and skills
Marksmanship: 6 Steps to Firing the Shot
Kenneth Pirtle
Learn sight alignment, sight picture, focus, respiratory pause, squeeze the trigger, and follow through.
Live fire exercise with single-shot pellet rifles.
Protection K9s
Joel Ryals
In many situations, just having a gun is not enough. Adding a Protection Dog to your defense makes you, your family, and your home safer. Joel will be demonstrating his dog’s capability at the end of this presentation.
Traditional Blacksmithing
Dakota Lobato
Focus on traditional blacksmithing: hand tools, hooks, key fobs, and the application of such blacksmithing skills as taper, isolating material, creating shapes, and partnered striking.
Distilling for Fuel
Jason Rautbort
See how making a mash and extracting in a small still creates high-proof ethanol that can run small engines.
Beekeeping
Ken Johnson
Demonstration by a skilled bee whisperer. He calls them “the girls” and lavishes attention on their hives and seasons. Learn basic techniques, necessary equipment, and the year according to a bee.
Chainsaw Safety
Chris Watkins
Cutting techniques, chainsaw safety, personal protective equipment, basic maintenance, and some very handy knots
Greenhouse Best Practices
Jeramy Bailey
How to build a greenhouse and produce your own plants for the garden or market. Tips, tricks, and learned experiences to having a successful greenhouse.
Grind Your Grains
Justin Metcalf
Experience a portable grist mill in action.
EMP Protection
Robert Spagnuolo, Andrew Bucchin
EMP Shield
Discussion of the Intentional Community
Rebecca Powers
Theory, reality, and stories of successful peer-helping communities and the Freedom Cell Network.
Apocalypse-Proof Homestead Design
Nick Ferguson
Design your homestead to provide grocery and feed store independence.
