Prince William and Kate’s office went on a briefing spree this week ahead of their joint trip to Scarborough on Thursday. The briefings are nothing new – for every one public event, Kensington Palace tries to organize at least a dozen major pieces about William and Kate’s keenness, their brilliance, their hard work, their promises to do even more eventually. Now that they’re Prince of Wales and Princess of Wales, one would think that after all of that preening and keening, they would simply exist and work in their roles without needing to be embiggened for merely meeting the lowest bar of expectations. Not so much. William and Kate’s new thing is that they’re not going to just wander around, shaking hands and making appearances. No, they’re also going to take credit for “inventing” charitable fundraising schemes.
As we heard in a previous Telegraph piece, William and Kate’s visit to Scarborough was their first Community Impact Day, wherein their Royal Foundation acted as a middleman to facilitate… other people donating to local charities. None of the money came from the Royal Foundation, the RF didn’t “match funds” and no one is even saying that William and Kate actually organized jacksh-t. Then the Telegraph doubled-down on the keenery with a second article about how all of this was William’s idea and it’s all part of his plot to modernize the monarchy, a plot which he had to come up with himself after Harry left!
Not since Queen Elizabeth II invented the walkabout in 1970 has there been a major change to the way royal visits are conducted. The format of official engagements has become so staid that reports of them often focus on fashion, gossip or the body language of the principals involved. The Prince of Wales, like other members of his family, is often frustrated at the coverage they get. Though he lacks the sheer star power of his mother, the Prince has for years been determined to shift the dial on royal visits. His new idea of “community impact days aims” to turn the concept on its head.
Instead of visiting deprived communities, giving them a day in the sun and then hoping money will be raised as a result, the Prince and Princess of Wales want to reverse the process by using the build-up to a visit to generate money, which they can then announce and disburse when they get there. It is something of a gamble because it will, in effect, put a cash sum on the value of royal visits. It is a gamble he is more than happy to take.
Royal aides say the two words the Prince has kept repeating as he has formulated his new idea are “impact” and “legacy”, reflecting the undeniable fact that he felt the traditional way of doing things was generating neither.
The pilot of the scheme in Scarborough on Thursday had been in the pipeline before Queen Elizabeth died, but the Prince’s elevation to heir to the throne has markedly increased his ability to put his own stamp on the royal way of doing things. He has the blessing of the King, who shares his son’s desire to modernise. Both men know that they must pull off a delicate balancing act between maintaining traditions and moving with the times – something successive generations of the Royal family have agonised about since the end of the age of deference.
If the pilot is a success, we can expect impact days to become a regular fixture in the Prince and Princess’s diary. Royal aides have spoken in the past of the Prince’s desire to focus on “big bets”, rather than endless charity visits. But the Prince has had to readjust his sights in the aftermath of Megxit, which ruined his plans to use the Wales-Sussex “fab four” to tackle the world’s ills.
Friends have said Megxit left him having to “start from scratch” – and his impact days are one of the ideas to emerge from the ruins of his previous plans. The Palace is anxious to make clear that impact days will not replace traditional visits, for two reasons. The first is that they take months to organise, because teams from the Prince’s charity – the Royal Foundation – have to work with local organisations to raise money and plan how it will be spent. The second is that the Prince recognises that simply being seen is a major part of his job if the monarchy is to retain its popularity.
[From The Telegraph]
LMAO, Prince William is a 40 year old man who thinks he came up with the boldest f–king idea of… planning a visit around fundraising for a specific charity. Like, WHY WEREN’T YOU DOING THAT THIS WHOLE TIME? You make a visit to Centrepoint and actually organize a fundraising effort around that visit. You visit a refugee community and you organize a way to get people supplies and clothes. That’s literally how these visits should have been working this whole time!! WTF?? And the whole thing about “the Prince has had to readjust his sights in the aftermath of Megxit, which ruined his plans to use the Wales-Sussex “fab four” to tackle the world’s ills.” Oh my God. The Sussexes left Salt Island three years ago and it’s taken William this long to come up with… charity fundraising combined with in-person visits. Why is everyone walking on eggshells to avoid talking about William’s stupidity?
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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