INTERNATIONAL GUIDE CONFERENCE

Wanganui Chronicle, 4 October 1946, Page 9

INTERNATIONAL GUIDE CONFERENCE

NZ. DELEGATE’S REPORT. The New Zealand delegate to the Girl Guides Association International conference, Mrs. F. G. Soper. Dunedin. has recently sent the following report of the conference which took place during the first week of September. The conference was held in the Hotel Royale, which is described by Mrs. Soper as a most luxurious hotel overlooking Lake Geneva. Six hundred Guides were camped in the woods round the hotel and the conference delegates saw them twice daily—first when at 9 a.m. the French tricolour and the Guide World Flag were hoisted, and secondly at 5 p.m. when they entertained the delegates with mime and dance. Mrs. Soper describes these Guides as a very fine type, strong and handsome, and they annear to have a very high regard for Guiding. The Chief Guide, Lady Baden Powell, was at the conference, and delegates from 24 different nations. Each delegate gave a brief account of the activities during the war. and reports from European countries, crushed by the war, were astounding in some cases and made one realise what, a power Guiding is that it. should have endured (often secretly) under such crushing conditionsSome of the subjects discussed were: _ “To further mutual understanding, what kind of information should be gathered and disseminated, and what methods should be employed for doing so?” “What are the main obstacles in the way of deve’oning international understanding and how ran Guiding overcome them.” “How ran girls bo preoared to take nart effect ivelv in international gatherings?” “How can friendship be extended to other youth organisations and to the youth of non-Guide counIn summing up her report Mrs. Soper said she was convinced that we must do everything in our power as a country to make our Guides aware of the international asnect of the movement. We must really find out about conditions in other countries, form contacts, and really make our Guides realise that “a person who is different from us is not funny, or inferior, or outside our ken, but (a) being like ourselves and (h) with national reasons for her differences (for example the Norwegians dine at 430 n.m., and the Czechoslovakians attack buns nnd cheese with a knife and fork) Miss Mona Burgin, or Auckland, is also attending the conference and in a letter she describes some of the conditions in that part of France. The price of everything is colossal. A cup of tea and a biscuit cost Is Bd.