Scouting is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year and to help with the celebrations the Isle of Man Treasury has approved the release of a superb new coin.

Robert Baden-Powell was a very productive painter and writer and he discovered, upon returning from South Africa, that a military training manual he had written, Aids to Scouting, had become a best seller. During the Boer War young lads were sent to run messages and these lads were known as ‘scouts’. Based on this early book he then wrote Scouting for Boys and whilst writing this he tested his ideas on a camping trip for 20 boys on Brownsea Island in 1907, which is now seen as the beginning of Scouting.

100 years later, the Scouting movement has grown quite considerably (around a million times bigger) and now involves boys and girls, men and women from nearly every country in the world. On 1st August 2007, as the sun rises, Scouts worldwide will gather to celebrate ‘Scouting’s Sunrise’ exactly 100 years after the first experimental camp on Brownsea Island. On the same day 40,000 Scouts from over 150 nations will celebrate at the World Scout Jamboree and, at a unique event on Brownsea Island, two Scouts from each of the member countries will be linked to the Jamboree by satellite.

The design itself depicts Lord Baden-Powell in the centre with the Scouting system the Fleur de Lys below. Various surrounding images represent some of the many different aspects of scouting.

This is a cupro-nickel coin