Girl Guides of Canada 100 year celebration of our Founder Lord Baden Powell at Kitchener Memorial Auditorium in 1957

To the Mike Farwell Show and also The Aud or as I knew it, The Kitchener Memorial Auditorium has played a large part in my memory in many ways from Skating Saturday Mornings when I was a child, to going with my Dad to see the Dutchman Play hockey and cheering on Butch Martin, Ken Laufman and many other favourite players and later watching the Kitchener Rangers. Another memory was watching the tag teams with Little Beaver and many other wrestlers. It was always such fun to go to the events at the Aud.

But my most memorable time was when I was a part of Girl Guides of Canada in 1957 when we were celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of our Founder Lord Baden Powell . He was born in 1857 and the Auditorium was filled with Girl Guides and Brownies from the KW and area. I am not sure if the Boy Scouts were also in attendance. It seems with Covid 19 that information was hard to come by since our Archives of GG is in Toronto and the Archives for the Aud was also difficult to get to. I was part of the colour party for this ceremony and my colour guards were my guide friends Diane Aljoe and Sharon Drown. I think we were all about 13 years old. I wore a leather holder which the flag fit into and once at the front of the Aud where the ceremony was to take place, I was to put the flag into the flag holder which I had to have a bit of help from my Girl Guide leader whose name was Captain Evelyn Power and we were part of the 12th Kitchener Girl Guide Unit, meeting at St. Columbus Anglican Church on Lancaster Street . It was such an honour to be chosen to be in the colour party and to be part of this event and a memory that I have never forgotten at the then Kitchener Memorial Auditorium in the year 1957.

I have included a picture of my Girl Guide Uniform which I wore for this event and it brings back fond memories. Some of the friends I made in Girl Guides, I am still in touch with more than 60 years later. My family was also a part of the Girl Guide and Boy Scout Movement.

- Jan Golbeck