Time To Give the Tents A Little TLC

For so many aspects in life, when things get a little hectic, it’s usually best to just stop, re-evaluate the situation, and approach the challenge with a calm, thought-out plan. We recently took this approach with the tents in our primary trailer. I’m happy to say it was a complete success.

A Typical Event

Generally speaking, our camping events are fairly organized. I’m always impressed with how well our Scouts are able to set up their tents and other camping equipment once we arrive at our destination. Even when we arrive after dark, it doesn’t seem to phase them. It doesn’t take long before everyone has their “weekend home” set up and ready to go.

In fairness… When it comes time to pack things up at the end of our trip, the guys good a good job as well. They may not move too quickly, especially if it’s been a busy trip, but they get the job done.

Despite their efforts, after a number of trips, our tent situation seems to gradually go downhill. It’s not uncommon to start the next event by pulling the contents out of a tent bag and finding that something is missing or broken. Sometimes there are even extra (or broken) parts. We manage, but it can make the setup process a little more difficult than it needs to be.

You see… When we arrive at camp, everyone is usually excited and wide awake. By the last day when we’re breaking down camp, we’re all usually tired (which is a good thing). On those extra special days, we’re packing things up while it’s raining on us. Needless to say, the level of attention given to the packing process is usually lacking a bit.

Time To Re-Group

Well, at our last camping trip to Beaver Dam, we realized a number of our tents had one or more issues. We decided that, after we got back, we needed to go through them and get things sorted out correctly. (The best part about this…the Scouts came up with the idea!)

So, we allocated most of the time at our last troop meeting to our tents. The Scouts started by pulling all of them out of the trailer. Luckily there weren’t any big events going on at Holy Cross at the time. We were able to spread them all out in one of the parking lots to evaluate the situation.

By the time we were done, we had sorted out the mixed up ground covers, located missing ground cover bags, evenly distributed the tent stakes, and even repaired a couple of poles using the spare parts we had in the trailer. By the time we were done, each tent bag contained a full set of equipment, all ready to go for our next adventure. Our older Scouts even used the opportunity to help teach the other Scouts how to fold and pack the tents. It was definitely a productive evening!