Like many girls of my generation, I spent a decade or so in the Girl Guides - first as a Brownie, then as a Guide, a Pathfinder, and finally a Junior Leader. Looking back, I value those experiences a lot. They taught me a great deal about teamwork, community building, and learning outside my comfort zone. My Girl Guide leader was a woman my sisters and I still refer to as "Captain Beacock". I admired her tremendously but she also scared the living bejesus out of me. Disappointing Captain - ever - wasn't an option. On one particularly memorable wilderness camping expedition, she insisted a small group of us (the oldest of whom was 13 or 14) spend the night in a leaky lean-to in the midst of a hurricane. I kid you not. In the end, other leaders, concerned we might be smote by falling trees, rescued us so we spent the last part of the night in a warm, dry cabin nearby, but she'd have left us in the woods if she'd had her way. Our Pathfinder leader was the comple...