personal tents vs troop tents

[stressbaby 10]

We have a new scout troop, one year old. Another troop that was folding generously donated their tents to us. They are adequate for all of our needs.

 

Our trouble is that some scouts want to take their own personal tents camping. One scout has a one-man backpacking tent that he wants to use. Two others (both sons of the CC) want to take their own 2-man tents.

 

My position is that if the boys want to use their own tents, then they can go camping with their family or friends outside of scouts. For troop activities, the troop tents should be used. This creates a sense of ownership of the troop equipment, prevents squabbles about choosing tent-mates, and prevents hard feelings among the boys who can't afford their own tents.

 

Am I all wet? Does anyone have any experience with this issue?

[hops_scout 9]

Do a quick search in the camping and high adventure section of this site. There are a couple of discussions about this already.

 

BTW--- where in Missouri are you?

[stressbaby 10]

I just knew this topic had to have been addressed earlier. But I spent an hour messing around with the search function and I could not find my answer. The search refused to limit my search to camping and pulled up irrelevant threads from all of the different forums. After an hour I gave up and posted the question again.

 

I'm in Fulton.

 

Stressbaby.

[hops_scout 9]

http://www.scouter.com/forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=20392#id_22086

 

Right there for you:)

[stressbaby 10]

Got it, thanks!

[eisely 13]

I don't have real strong feelings about this one way or the other. Our troop owns no tents. We have a storage problem for what we do have.

 

Be that as it may, one problem with boys wanting to use their own tents is ending up with too many tents, or tents that are excessively large, on a particular outing. A boy who insists on using his own two man tent by himself is in fact imposing something of a burden on the rest of the group, particularly if you are backpacking. The more excess stuff a scout takes along for his own use, the less community stuff his pack will accomodate. This is reason enough to insist on using the troop gear if you have it.

[Adrianvs 10]

I assume that a troop policy requiring the usage of troop tents would apply to adults as well. Or are the reasons not applicable?