GIRL GUIDES

Hawera Star, Volume L, 7 February 1931, Page 15

GIRL GUIDES

NOTES BY “GUIDER” WELLINGTON RALLY, FEBRUARY 2STH. Miss Kebbell, who is to bo in charge of the rally to be held in Wellington on Saturday, February 28, has advised the Provincial Commissioner, Mrs. Morrison, that it has been considered advisable to cut out the Country dance, Dashing White Sergeant, which was to have been a feature of the rally. The programme has assumed such proportions that there would not he time for this item. HAWKES BAY EARTHQUAKE. Our great sympathies are with members of the Scout and Guide organisations in the -stricken area, and -some practical form of relief is to he made. VISIT OF THE CHI EES. Guides will notice in to-day’s portion of the historical sketch or our movement, that the Chief Scout last visited New Zealand in 1913, just a few months before war broke out. It is therefore nearly 18 years since he was in our country, and inspected Scout and Guide companies in the various centres where they could he got together. He will doubtless make an interesting comparison when he arrives in New Zealand this month.

GENERAL HISTORICAL SKETCH. (Continued). “News from other directions iuclud<es the following: A headquarters executive for the Dominion of Canada had been formed and in the Falkland Islands twenty girls had qualiiied for their Tenderfoot badge Guides from Sevenoaks in England paid a visit to the Netherlands, where they were shown great kindness by the Dutch Girl Guides and their friends, whose guests they were. In September Miss Badeu-Powell relates how a Canadian i Guide was able to stop a motor car which was out of control. This Guide rushed after the car, climbed in, put on the brakes, and thus averted a terrible disaster. In September of 1912, the Chief Scout visited South Africa where lie saw many Scouts and Guides, and personally decorated two 1 Guides for gallantry. One of these was a Natal Guide who had saved several children as well as a grown-up woman from drowning in very dangerous circumstances. And t lie other caught a run-away horse by its head after several men had tried to stop it. New Zealand, India, Hawaii and New Zealand, India, Hawaiia and Shanghai are on the list to which Miss Badcn-Powell sent New Year messages in January 1913. In February she thanks the detachment of Guides who helped to make the Children’s Welfare, Exhibition at Olympia, in London, a success by demonstrating various Guide activities. In New Zealand there were 400 Guides present when the Chief .Scout inspected them during his tour. In Egypt a small company under Mrs. Ward had been started at Alexandria,’but when the war broke out the company was disbanded, its members dispersing for war work with other organisations. The Sveriges Flickers Scoutforbund,

or Association of Swedish Girl Scouts, Lwas also founded in 1913. In Norway scattered groups of girls came together and started to work on the lines of the Boy Scouts, Sometimes they asked grown-up people to act as their leaders and they tried to play the game as set out in the Boy’s Handbook, or according to the Girl Guides’ methods in Great Britain, when they could obtain the literature. Some of these groups went to the K.F.U.K. or the Young Women’s Christian Association, for their leaders and the Association were quick to realise that the' organisation could be strengthened by using the attraction of the Chief Scout’s scheme to hold the girls. The first of the K.F.U.K. groups was organised in May 1912 at Sandefjord. These extracts from early reports are surprising to people who only heard of the Girl Guides after the war, and one feels that Miss Baden-Powell, in her pioneer work for her brother, laid strong foundations for the future development of the scheme. In 1914 it was decided that it would be more satisfactory if the movement in Great Britain were to have its own journal and so the Girl Guide Gazette Hie name of which was afterwards changed to The Guider, was published monthly. This did much to make the aims and ideals better known both at home and abroad, as well as to encourage the Guides hv giving them new ideas. Being now firmly established in Great Britain and developng in many directions it looked as though its sucess was . firmly assured for the future. But then suddenly the Great War interrupted its prosperous progress and it had, at once, to adopt itself to new conditions. The Guides did war work of various kinds and this, perhaps, did more than anything else could have done to make the movement respected by the nation. Whether now that a World Assoeia-

tion has been brought into being and rthe Guide and Girl Scout organisations have accepted their part as promoters of Peace, such duties as war work (apart from Red Cross activities, or work for civilians) will be undertaken in future remains to be seen. It may be possible, and it would certainly seem to some people to lie desirable, that at future World Conferences some arrangement should be agreed upon which will ensure that Guides and Girl Scouts became a neutral body like the International Red Cross Society, not only in war time, but also during any national upheaval such as a strike. (To be Continued.)