Who owns the tents?

[MarkS]

A few years ago our troop bought 25 tents. The tents were used by the troop as a whole for our monthly campouts. Attrition took its toll because of damage through mistreatment, normal wear and tear, boys taking them home for drying and not returning them (lost three or four this way), and finally theft as our trailer was broken into a couple months ago.

 

We just bought 20 brand new tents. The troop owns them but we're numbering them and assigning them to partrols. This makes it harder to cherry pick tents when setting up camp. Boys have a choice of four tents for their patrol instead of all 20. The boys now know that if they damage a tent, they will most likely be sleeping in that tent on their next campout.(This message has been edited by MarkS)

[eolesen]

We don''t maintain troop tents anymore.

 

And we don''t have a trailer, troop stoves, lanterns, or other gear aside from minimally equipped chuck-boxes.

 

Why?

 

Durable equipment like tents and stoves require care, and while there will occasionally be the boy who refuses to buddy up with someone else, the long term benefit is that by requiring personal equipment, each boy winds up more or less fully equipped to enjoy camping on their own time and/or as they go off to college.

 

Granted, we do more backpacking, but the policy does make sense, and there''s a lot less damage since it is their personal gear. If it''s broke, they''re on the hook for replacing it.