British Royal Family Engagements 2015


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Thank you ILuvBertie. I can imagine it would be interesting if you and Mr. O'Donovan could have the opportunity to discuss how you tally your figures. Do you think Mr. O'Donovan counts "arrivals/departures" that are mentioned in the CC?
 
I don't think so. My figures are higher than his and I don't but then again he might count them and not other things. I do count the 'arrival' IF there is some formal 'welcome' attached to the arrival e.g. 'received by the PM of Australia' but not if it is simply arrived and nothing official happened until later in the tour. The only departures I count are The Queen and Philip when there is a formal send off - as there was when they went to Malta with the High Commissioner from Malta and someone from the UK government officially farewelling them. That was for a State Visit of course but when say Charles and Camilla left for Australia there was no send-off so no count from me.
 
One addition to the 'types of engagements' I will be making next year is 'Walking with the Wounded' as Harry does so much for them, or so it appears, so an actual count might show how much is official and how much unofficial (one thing that might have been missed by people this year is that the Duke of Kent also had an engagement with Walking with the Wounded). I have done 'Pitch at the Palace' for Andrew this year so I think it is only fair to add Walking with the Wounded for Harry. It would become totally unwieldy to do this for every single royal and charity but those two simply stand out for me.

If anyone has a 'would really like you to do' for a particular royal - a charity that you really see associated with one particular royal I will think about adding it to the list. I know Anne does a lot for Save the Children for instance along with the Olympics and Charles has The Princes Trust but it would be impossible to really do every charity for every royal but maybe I could focus on one charity for most royals just as a sign of how much they do for one particular charity.


At the moment I have:


Charles - The Princes Trust
Camilla -
William - Tusk
Kate - The Art Room
Harry - Walking with Wounded
Andrew - Pitch@Palace
Edward - Duke of Edinburgh Awards
Sophie -
Anne - Save the Children
Richard -
Birgitte -
Edward - Masonic Associations
Alexandra


If anyone has something for those missing or other suggestions for those where I have an idea please let me know.
 
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:previous:

Just a few ideas:

For Edward, Duke of Kent, could you choose either The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (this is international and v special) or RNLI (this is a charity which covers all Life Boat stations in UK). Just a thought

Birgitte - Royal Academy of Music

Alexandra - British Red Cross

Duke of Glos - Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem (He's Grand Prior). This is the "ST Johns AMbulance as well as other charitable work

Sophie - International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (she's Global Ambassador)

Camilla - Arthritis Research UK.
 
2016 is a Olympic year so Anne is going to more involved with the Olympics this year then a non Olympics year like 2015. Also Charity anniversary also should be considered such as its the 75th anniversary for the RAF air cadets so Kate will probably do more engagements for them in 2016 instead of the Art Room. Kate only had 1 Art Room event last year that I can recall.


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I don't think so. My figures are higher than his and I don't but then again he might count them and not other things. I do count the 'arrival' IF there is some formal 'welcome' attached to the arrival e.g. 'received by the PM of Australia' but not if it is simply arrived and nothing official happened until later in the tour. The only departures I count are The Queen and Philip when there is a formal send off - as there was when they went to Malta with the High Commissioner from Malta and someone from the UK government officially farewelling them. That was for a State Visit of course but when say Charles and Camilla left for Australia there was no send-off so no count from me.
Thank you :)
 
I have chosen the Masonic Associations for the Duke of Kent due to coming from a Masonic Family myself and belonging to an associated order.


I can also do the War Graves Commission as my great-grandfather's grave has been cared for my them for nearly 100 years.


Thanks for the other suggestions.


The Olympics will be covered under Other Sports so no need to put in a special category for a two week event which will see her undertake about 10 - 16 engagements (in 2012 'attended Olympic Games' was how the entry was worded with nothing about how many events and that was for each day).


I am not keen on doing military organisations as such as they military is covered with a number of entries already.
 
I think you have things pretty well covered. Not sure if this is included already but maybe an area for visits to areas affected by disasters such as Charles has done recently with the flooding of Birkhall? Perhaps Emergency Support?
 
Tusk is a good choice for William, but I think that he is focusing more on United4Wildlife. The two are sometimes hard to separate.
 
A comparison of the three younger royals' (and specifically Kate) attention to their charities in comparison to older royals like Sophie. Richard Palmer gave
the link on his Twitter page too, stating the stats were 'interesting'. The comments following this are as well. (It's the top article.)

katemiddletonreview
 
A comparison of the three younger royals' (and specifically Kate) attention to their charities in comparison to older royals like Sophie. Richard Palmer gave
the link on his Twitter page too, stating the stats were 'interesting'. The comments following this are as well. (It's the top article.)

katemiddletonreview

I read it, interesting that there were no mentioning on the amount of work Catherine do behind the scenes, and the meetings and correspondents with her charities. There's more to the royals jobs than just visiting charities.
 
There seems to be a false premis that patronages/charities should take up most of the work. Not true of any of the BRF, not even PoW or Princess Royal

State events and overseas tours (always lots of events crammed in) just don't allow for that.

And (sorry if I'm in repeat mode) if the charity/patronage don't fund many events then there is nothing to attend. Behind scene stuff, as DMAN stated, doesn't get reported.

Its interesting but is only part of the story as it doesn't put into entire context of BRF work or her "part time" status
 
^^^Thank you for sharing this information cepe as I know you have been following the engagements and activities of the BRF for decades now.
 
It doesn't get reported because how would you? Is Kate going to clock into a time clock and they publish the hours she puts in behind the scenes?

Royal tours and state visits take the majority of time? The royals are gone on state tours maybe 4-8 weeks out of 52 of the year, more if like the jubilee year. There doesn't need to be an 'event'. A tour of the site, meeting with people, attending their meetings. Senior royals average over 300 engagements a year, so there is obviously enough events to fill the time. They get credit for any events when they are over seas. If they are in the UK 46 weeks of the year, minus say 6 weeks for holidays, 40 weeks, they could do at least 2 events a week and get up to 80, plus their tours. Considering these engagements are 2-3 hours most, that leaves plenty of planning and organizing time the rest of the week.
 
Didn't an EACH worker post though, that Kate had accepted just two of the ten invitations to EACH events the charity had asked her to, in one year?

Also it mentions there that Sophie does sometimes report on her behind the scenes meetings and what's been discussed, though it doesn't usually appear in the CC.

Queen Letizia does this quite a bit and is photographed going to and from meetings. I know the SRF is a very different kettle of fish to the BRF, but IMHO it should be something for BRF royals to consider. Documentation of some meetings/private visits to charities would give a clearer picture, I think, and stop criticism. If there's obviously a lot of work going on behind the scenes then the public should know about it.
 
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Didn't an EACH worker post though, that Kate had accepted just two of the ten invitations to EACH events the charity had asked her too, in one year?

Also it mentions there that Sophie does sometimes report on her behind the scenes meetings and what's been discussed, though it doesn't usually appear in the CC.

Queen Letizia does this quite a bit and is photographed going to and from meetings. I know the SRF is a very different kettle of fish to the BRF, but IMHO it should be something for BRF royals to consider. Documentation of some meetings/private visits to charities would give a clearer picture, I think, and stop criticism. If there's obviously a lot of work going on behind the scenes then the public should know about it.

sadly it won't do anything, if you believe the people commenting on that article. They think Kate is just empty and I don't think anything she does will change that. So sad.

I do think the BRF could step up and change in a lot of ways. Only time will tell, however.
 
Sophie and Edward report meetings all the time.

Princess Royal never seems to have any but does go to conferences.

The difference is that Anne is "old school" - over 700 charities and she goes to their events. Edward has a lot fewer but meets up with them regularly particularly DoE Awards.

Charles balance is shifting in line with his responsibilities.

The Cambridges don't report any meetings except the Charity Forums and the Foundation. And Charity Forums and foundations like the Princes Trust seems to be the way forward

I'm not rambling, just giving a range of examples to show that even within the BRF its like comparing apples and oranges.

By the way, HMQ doesn't report any mtgs and rarely sees her 600+ charities unless there is a specific anniversary or major event
 
Hate to keep banging the drum about foreign monarchies but don't the Spanish Royal family have mostly large Foundation umbrella organisations rather than a plethora of small charities/organisations?

That approach makes everything very much more specific, cutting edge, modern and focused, but, if you only concentrate on a comparatively few charities then it's quite easy to fall into lazy habits I would think, which is why I think reports of background work a la the Wessexes, is a good idea.

If that is the way the BRF is to go then the hard yards have to really be put in behind the scenes. That is, if you are not 'old school'. I don't think Charles or Anne have ever been accused of being idle!
 
sadly it won't do anything, if you believe the people commenting on that article. They think Kate is just empty and I don't think anything she does will change that. So sad.

I do think the BRF could step up and change in a lot of ways. Only time will tell, however.
Unfortunately I have to agree with you GomdNatt. There are too many who are unwilling to consider any other opinion.
 
Catherine and other royals are always busy with meetings with their staff, officials from their charities and other organizations. They're never really "idle" but unfortunately a lot isn't reported on and photographed. Also, let's not forget Catherine is a busy wife and mother. Catherine isn't just sitting around painting her nails and playing with her hair.

It would be wonderful if the royals official royal duties behind the scenes were at least pictured and reported on. It would give people a great deal of insight on the hard work the royals put in. The royal officials need to make some adjustments on how the royals work is documented and reported on.
 
Take a investiture for example, whether it's the Queen, Charles, Anne or William, the Royal reads the citation for each person they are giving a gong to beforehand. So when John Smith from Newcastle gets his MBE, the Royal will know it's for beekeeping and can make some small talk. That prep work will take a couple of hours.

Imagine the prep work for a foreign tour where you have to learn about the cultural dos and don'ts, the areas you are visiting, leaders being met, the events that you are doing, etc.


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sadly it won't do anything, if you believe the people commenting on that article. They think Kate is just empty and I don't think anything she does will change that. So sad.

I do think the BRF could step up and change in a lot of ways. Only time will tell, however.

If you remember though, GomdNatt, Kate came into the BRF in 2011 on a wave of public goodwill. It has largely evaporated, IMHO since then.
 
If you remember though, GomdNatt, Kate came into the BRF in 2011 on a wave of public goodwill. It has largely evaporated, IMHO since then.

That's expected, because opinions for the royal family have it's ups and downs. It's always been that way.

Meanwhile, the royals simply carry on with their duties.
 
:previous::previous: Yes, but surely it's the way Kate tackles those Royal duties, and the number of them, that the commentators on the piece in the KateMiddletonReview were posting on!
 
In the almost 5 yrs of Kate being a Royal, she has had two kids and spent almost a entire year being sick from HG, waiting for baby to be born in late term of pregnancy or recovering from pregnancy. Also because of being pregnant with George and Charlotte, there were 2 years without a foreign tour for Kate. Tours are where the Royal engagement count really can build numbers up.


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Skippyboo, I think that's discussed in the article.
 
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:previous::previous: Yes, but surely it's the way Kate tackles those Royal duties, and the number of them, that the commentators on the piece in the KateMiddletonReview were posting on!

I think she's tackled her duties very well since becoming a senior royal. One must remember that you can't compare Catherine's official engagements with Sophie and other royals. They have far more responsibility than she do at the moment. Sophie has gained a great deal of patronages, royal duties and now work with the Duke of Edinburgh Awards in the UK and abroad. Those responsibilities alone make her far more busy.

The Duchess of Cambridge's official role as a senior royal are now starting to grow. She's done a great deal though...with royal tours across the UK and Commonwealth, Diamond Jubilee duties and now with a new royal tour around the corner and The Queen's 90th coming up, her official diary is about to become even more busy. Her roles are on it's way to increasing.

Let's not forget that she's a full-time wife and mom. Her life is busy, Curryong. Somehow I think you and others forget that.
 
Oh, I realise that. I had three children (by cesarean section, very ill after my first baby) and held down a responsible full time job in the social services sector as well during that time, a job that I gained straight after university. By the way, I and other married colleagues had to prepare speeches and deliver them at various conferences.

Worked until the last month with each and had three months off on leave afterwards, which I was grateful for. I was also grateful that I had a relative as a caregiver afterwards, though no nanny.

Many of those observing Kate over these last years and commenting on her performance are mums with full time jobs themselves, and packing everything they have to do into a working week. They do know what goes on when you have a family and a job. It's the life experience that many of these women have that informs their view of Kate.
 
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The interesting comparison to me with Sophie and Kate is the number of official duties done in the year after the birth of their respective first child - Kate did 44, Sophie well over double that.

That has set a large part of the tone I think - Sophie who almost died having Louise managed 173 (she did 185 for the calendar year by my count but 12 were in December so I took those off) while Kate who left hospital the next day after an easy birth with a healthy son from the very beginning managed only 44.

That is a huge difference and says a lot, to many people, about William and Kate's approach to their royal duties and responsibilities.
 
William & Catherine worked around his military career too. Edward & Sophie became full-time royals early on. You can't compare their roles to the Cambridge's.

I think people are just being down right unfair to William and Catherine. The problem I had with the royal couple was about them taking on more official roles within the firm, but you can't think they would be doing around the same amount of engagements as Sophie, Anne, Edward, Charles or even Andrew when those royals gained a great deal of responsibility from The Queen, Prince Philip, The Queen Mother and Princess Margaret. If William & Catherine were passed down other roles, they would be doing even more today. The Cambridge's are now attending State events, William is now conducting Investitures, and Prince Philip just handed down a military appointment over to Catherine. Their roles are growing and with The Queen turning 90 and Philip in his mid 90's, the Cambridge's duties are about to increase even more.
 
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