Girl Guides Australia
| Girl Guides Australia | |||
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| Country | Australia | ||
| Founded | 1910 | ||
| Membership | 30,811 | ||
| Chief Commissioner | Robinette Emonson | ||
| Affiliation | World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts | ||
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Website http://www.girlguides.org.au/ |
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Girl Guides Australia (GGA) is the national Guiding organisation in Australia. Its mission is to enable girls and young women to grow into confident, self-respecting members of the community. Membership is open to all girls and young women from all cultures, faiths and traditions. Founded in 1910, the girls-only organization became a full member of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts in 1928. It has 30,000 members (as of 2010) including 18,000 youth members, aged 5 to 17. Over a million Australian women are or have been Guides. The Girl Guide emblem incorporates the Commonwealth Star.
For many years, the Guide Promise closely resembled that of Girlguiding UK:
I promise that I will do my best:
To do my duty to God,
to serve the Queen and my country,
To help other people, and
To keep the Guide Law.
The Girl Guides Australia Board in May 2010, passed a recommendation that Members may opt to use an alternative to the current Promise:
I promise that I will do my best:
to do my duty to God and my country;
to help other people; and
to keep the Guide Law.
Other alternatives were also agreed for members of other nationalities.
In July 2012, the Guide Promise was updated, along with the Guide Law (as below), to better reflect modern society and the perspective of current day Guides. These changes were a result of comprehensive consultation with Girl Guides throughout Australia through the Promise and Law Review.
Notable changes include the removal of explicit reference to God, instead replaced by "my beliefs", and removing reference to the Queen. This updated promise was ratified by the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts on July 3, 2012 and now stands as below:
I promise that I will do my best
To be true to myself and develop my beliefs
To serve my community and Australia
And live by the Guide Law.
The original and long-standing Guide Law, as established in 1910 was:
A Guide is loyal and can be trusted.
A Guide is helpful.
A Guide is polite and considerate.
A Guide is friendly and a sister to all Guides.
A Guide is kind to animals and respects all living things.
A Guide is obedient.
A Guide has courage and is cheerful in all difficulties.
A Guide makes good use of her time.
A Guide takes care of her own possessions and those of other people.
A Guide is self-controlled in all she thinks, says and does.
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Wikipedia