My experience with the Girl Guide organization wasn't so great. I was in Brownies for several years and LOVED IT!! It was the highlight of the week for me, and I had lots of friends there. But eventually they all "flew" up to become Girl Scouts, and I wasn't allowed to until I could learn to knit. I tried, and everyone tried to help me, but I still could not knit well enough to "graduate" and eventually they asked me to leave the Brownies. I was mortified and felt so ashamed. To this day, while I can strip a computer apart and put it all back together in a matter of minutes and know exactly what everything on that motherboard does, and while I can sit down to a brand new piece of music and play it reasonably well within minutes...I still cannot knit. Or sew beyond a simple straight line.

We had a family cottage for over 30 years. Right next door to our property was the summer camp for the girl guides. After watching the shenanigans and outright bullying that we saw going on over there, I wonder if I was actually blessed to have escaped that.

After I was thrown out of Brownies, my church minister got me involved in a summer camp for children, which became one of the most pivotal, awesome and healing experiences of my life. I went on to become a counsellor there for eight summers and will be forever grateful for my time there. I guess if I had been allowed to fly up to Scout level, I might never have become involved in the other camping venture, so in hindsight I'm glad it went the way it did. Still, I have to question any organization with such ridiculous rules that ban a little girl just because she couldn't knit 10 rows for a silly badge.