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Two coach tours and guided walks were offered. The coaches did a tour of Merchant City, including Glasgow Green where they met the colourful Maggie Mciver of the Barras, with her horse and cart. Bell Geordie, the Town Crier, interspersed the tour with headlines from the history of the late 18th century and the Andrew Cunninghame, Tobacco Lord extraordinaire, made an appearance. The guests had a short stop at the famous Babbity Bowsters, an 18th century inn, where they heard from
the wife of Rab Ha, Glasgow's infamous glutton. In total, ten guides took part in the historical tableau, complete with wigs, props, authentic costumes and historically accurate scripts.
Guides didn’t just promote themselves on International Tourist Guiding Day. In April 2000 tourists may have been rather puzzled by the appearance of a couple of 18th century wenches outside John Knox’s House and by two costumed characters having a ‘set to’ outside St Giles, while further down the Royal Mile Deacon Brodie was pontificating.
They were all guides taking part in a showcase for their talents on a walk down the Royal Mile to the new Scottish Parliament. Organised by Anne Doig and the Edinburgh committee, who also managed to secure sponsorship from Virgin Trains and MacDonald Hotels, the event attracted almost 40 agents including JAC Travel, ScotWorld and Travel Scotland.
Another International Day of Guiding event that grabbed headlines was in 2004 when 15 guides accompanied 36 people who had little or no sight on a two and half hour tour of Glasgow including the cathedral. By 2001 the booking service was now established in Stirling and in March that year Dot Wylie joined the STGA office team as full time booking secretary. Dot, who was brought up in Paisley, had worked in the tourism industry for many years.
In 2002 the STGA received a grant from Scottish Enterprise for the development of its website. The internet was growing fast and becoming more sophisticated by the day.
With the grant the website was upgraded with the addition of language pages, a members’ forum and the inclusion of new photographs. The second stage in the development of the website administration systems was completed in 2005 which enabled guides to register their availability on line providing an improved booking system for customers. By 2008 a new website was being built by a company called Radiator based in Glasgow. The front end was being built for free and £7280 costs were for the new administration system which was the back bone of the office. Another radical technology innovation which was going to change the nature of guiding first came to the notice of the STGA in 2001 when Guidelines said it had received information on systems which enable
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