Ok, here's the update peeps, and this reflects some points some of you have made,,,,,
took some time out at lunch time today and visited a British red cross facility in a neighbouring town, spoke to a very nice lady, she explained that the reason the charities collect cash is this-in an area of major disaster like Haiti a lot of infrastructure becomes non functioning, the charities make initial priorities like 'medical, water, food and sanitation' which they try to source as local as possible to that region, partly to localise revenue, in other words my tent wouldnt be shipped directly to Haiti-if it was sold in a 'charity shop' the cash would be used to purchase another tent (or other vital equipment)from a nearby area involved directly with the relief effort-in this case more than likely to be the USA (Haiti is approx' 600 miles off the Florida coast)
the Red cross lady was good enough (after prompting from me) to contact someone within their retail section (the high st charity shops), who gave an estimate of £15-£20 for the tent, I kind of guessed at this figure anyway.
I suppose 'every drip fills the bucket'.
Just seems a 'faff' to convert an item into cash and back to an item again (with a probable loss in monetary terms)
an 8 man brand new tent sold in Scotland for £20, 2 man tent bought in the USA for $19 and flown to Haiti, or $19 worth of clean drinking water-depends what way you look at it
what a hot foxtrelle a very nice lady I spoke to, and brilliant in her explanation of 'how-it-works'
anyhoo, 20 bucks is a lot when you've nothing !