I don't think that Wikimedia New England is at a stage right now, either financially or organizationally, where having an equipment pool makes a tremendous amount of sense, but if there ever was an argument for having one I think it was made over the past few days by
Albin Olsson (user:Abbedabb at commons)[1], who covered this year's Eurovision contest using a Nikon D600 from the equipment pool of Wikimedia Sverige, producing just over 500 photographs and film clips from the event.[2]
Just something to keep in mind for the future, since it would be awesome to have this kind of thing for events that take place in Boston/New England.
Sven
[1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Abbedabb
[2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AListFiles&limit=500&user=Abbedabb