so my local ARES group is having their monthly drill tomorrow and its my first time participating. got my general last month and the EC said i should come check it out. im a little nervous cause i dont really know what to expect or if ill mess something up. do they usually just do message handling or is there other stuff too? should i bring anything besides my radio?

Don't worry about it, first drill is always a bit overwhelming but everyone's super helpful. Usually we do some message traffic practice, maybe a net, sometimes they throw in a scenario like simulating power outage or something. Bring a pen and paper for logging, maybe a snack if its a long one. Our group goes for about 2 hours. The main thing is just listen and learn, nobody expects you to be perfect right away.

yeah what KD5XYZ said, plus make sure you know your phonetics and can copy down messages reasonably well. i remember my first drill i was so focused on not screwing up the radio part that i completely botched writing down a simple health and welfare message lol. also might want to review the ICS forms if your group uses them, though they'll probably go over that stuff during the training portion