2010Girl Guide Centenary - First Day Cover

Girl guides or Girl Scouts is a parallel movement to Scouting. It evolved from the Scouting movement in the early years of the 20th century. Girls were attracted to Scouting since its inception in 1907 when Robert Baden-Powell, a famous army general, tried out his ideas for training boys at a camp on Brown sea Island in 1907 and the following year published them in a book, ‘Scouting for Boys’. The book was an instant success and boys throughout the UK enthusiastically took up Scouting. As a result, Baden-Powell soon found himself organising the Boy Scout Movement. The movement took off in diverse ways in different parts of the world. In the United Kingdom a small group of courageous girls stepped forward at the 1909 Boy Scouts Rally in Crystal Palace Park and asked Robert Baden-Powell, for ‘something for the girls’.