October 11, 2012 – Marking the centennial anniversary of the Hungarian Scout Association, the Magyar Nemzeti Bank issued a collector coin with a matching 100 forint denomination. The official logo of the organisation – a lily with the Hungarian holy crown – is depicted on the obverse.
Hungary / 100 HUF / Cupro-nickel / 10 g / 30 mm / Design: Zoltán Tóth / Mintage: 5,000 (BU) and 10,000 (Proof).
100 years mean a great time. The world around us is changing, new generations grow up and there are completely different winds blowing nowadays than in the beginning of the 1900s. But scouting with its innovative ideas is still the same in the approach of teaching the youth the belonging to a community by doing. Scouting is a voluntary, apolitical, religious youth-educational movement. Its goal is to form a society made up of viable, committed, responsible, healthy citizens. As scouting crosses all borders, it makes this movement explicitly suitable for strengthening the ties between people.
Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of the Scouting Movement.
At the very beginning, the founder, Lord Robert Stevenson Smyth Baden-Powell of Gilwell, (also known as B-P) said: ‘I had a good idea, communities were formed. Now we became a movement, and if we don’t pay attention, we will become an organisation.’ For the support of the leaders working in the movement and for the representation of the participating young people country-based organisations were formed – which we now call Scout Associations.
The first scout groups in Hungary were formed in 1910, only two years after B-P officially declared the foundation of the scout movement at 28 January 1908 in Great Britain. The Hungarian Scout Association was founded the 28th of December 1912 in the reformed church on the Kálvin square in Budapest. There always have been Hungarian Scouts from this point on. World War I halted the development, but after the war, scouting started to bloom again. The Hungarian Scout Association now has eight successor organisations beyond the borders of todays’ Hungary, which cooperate with each other, organise camps and events together. In the critical times following World War II, scouting was banned, later permitted again and then the scout movement was merged with the pioneer movement. But the education in the spirit of scouting was continued secretly, until in 1989 the Hungarian Scout Association was formed anew officially. Today, the Hungarian Scout Association is living its life, openly to everyone who accepts its principles.
For more information on this coin, please visit the website of the Hungarian Mint.
This is the site of the oldest World Scouting organisation.