Girl Guides

[PatC]

Why do Girl Guides shake hands with their left hand

[Lillabet]

If I remember rightly - long time since I was a brownie or guide - then it is because you are also meant to give the salute - which is done with the right hand - when greeting senior guiders etc. To do both at the same time with the right hand would of course be impossible so you shake hands with the left hand.

Really its just part of the whole 'being in the club' type behaviour that almost all cliques and groups from 7 year old brownies to fully grown freemasons exhibit.

[LordyGeordie]

The idea of a left handshake was appropriated by Baden-Powell from an African tribe when he set up the scouts and then copied by his wife Olave when she founded guides.

This link gives the reasons:

http://www.scoutresources.org/bs/handshake.html

It mentions that the African tribe shook with their left hand because of trust etc. However, I once heard a rumour (albeit unconfirmed) that the real reason they shook with their left was they wiped their backsides with their right!

However, I must take exception to Lillabet's comments that it is all part of 'cliquey' behaviour. The whole ethos of Scouts and Guides is one of inclusion and to compare the Scout/ Guide handshake to the masonic handshake is misinformed and wrong.

By its nature, the masonic handshake, like the organisation, is secret and supposed to be only known to members (who incidentally have to be voted into the organisation). Everybody, even those outside Scouting, know of the scout handshake.

Anyone can join Scouts/ guides. The handshake is used within Scout/ guide events and unlike the masonic handshake is not there to distinguish members from non-members but as a means of welcoming fellow members

[ursula62]

When I was a scout leader, I was told on a training course that you shook with the left hand to signify trust as LordyGeordie says. When BP was in Africa he noticed that the tribes put down their shields to shake hands, which meant the other person was still armed with their spear and they were defenseless against a possible attack.

As Lilibet suggests, any "club" or "society" is elitist by its very nature - and while Lordy is right that anyone CAN join Scouts and Guides, many choose not to join.

Membership is declining in all but the youngest (Beavers and Rainbows) age groups as children have many more activities available to them these days, than, say 20-30 years ago. Also groups are closing because of lack of leaders - most parents these days work full time, and are quite understandably unwilling to give up their spare time to help run Scouts or Guides for no financial reward. Also, many leaders I trained with were teachers who had to give up Scouts and Guides because of extra paperwork for their teaching jobs when the National Curriculum was brought in.

Luckily there are still some people who want to give back something to the organisations that gave them so much fun when they were children, and who have the time to do this - but it is becoming a thankless task with all the legislation and risk management these days.

[rojash]

When I was a Scout , I was taught (as Lillabet) that it was so we could shake hands and salute simultaneously.

"as children have many more activities available to them these days". Not sure I agree with you on that one Ursula62. Thanks mainly to a marvelous Scout Leader, by the time I was 11, I'd visted Belgium, France, Germany and Luxembourg. By 15, I'd camped in Guernsey, commanded a boat on the Norfolk Broads, toured the waterways of Coventry, Worcester and Birmingham, been on manoeuvres with the army.

The Scouts also helped kick off my 35 years as a bass player by promoting gigs for my first rock'n'roll band.

Most of the kids I know today have played countless video games, watched hundreds of soap opera episodes on TV and maybe been on a package holiday or two to a beach somewhere with their parents.

[exarmyparrot]

it's caus their right hands are always a bit sticky, bieng in an all girl group and all

[Peter Pedant]

I recollect that Baden Powell said Guides and Scouts should shake with their left hand.

My brother aged 12 then gravely tried to shake hands with the Earl of Clan-Whatsit when introduced at a garden party. The other siblings of whom I was one were deemed to young to shake hands with the Earl. I remember my father having a convulsion as my brother gravely explained that scouts shook hands with their left hands. Thank you for bringing back an unexpected memory from 1960!

[ursula62]

Yes, as a girl guide I was also told  it was so you could salute simultaneously.... but BP got the idea that Scouts should use the left hand shake from the tribal leaders he observed in Africa. The salute bit came afterwards.

[Lillabet]

LordyGeordie, I apologise if you found my response upsetting. I do not think I am misinformed or wrong however.

I was saying that all groups tend to have particular signs / behaviours etc that define them. From particular uniforms to greetings to badges to chants (think football fans) etc.

As someone else said all groups are to an extent an elite whether or not they permit others to join. I meant that there are a whole spectrum of behaviours and would place guides etc at one end of the spectrum and groups such as freemasons at the other. I am certainly not saying and did not say that the two are wholly analogous.

[Hippy]

So that's official. You don't have to have been a Girl Guide to become a member of the Freemasons then.