THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF CAMBRIDGE TO TAKE PART IN THE KING’S CUP REGATTA

Cowes, Isle of Wight

UPDATE: DUE TO ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS, THIS EVENT IS NOW BEING HELD ON THE 8TH AUGUST

Thursday 8th August, 2019

• The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will go head to head in a major sailing regatta in support of Their Royal Highnesses’ charitable causes
• Each boat taking part will represent one of eight charities and the winning team will be awarded the historic trophy The King’s Cup
• Members of the public are invited to watch the racing from grandstands on the shore and enjoy family-friendly activities along the seafront

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will host the inaugural regatta The King’s Cup on Friday 9th August to raise awareness and funds for eight of Their Royal Highnesses’ patronages.

The event, which will take place in Cowes on the Isle of Wight, will see The Duke and Duchess go head to head as skippers of individual sailing boats, in an eight boat regatta. The winning team will be awarded The King’s Cup, a historic trophy first presented by King George V at Cowes’ Royal Yacht Squadron in 1920.

The eight boats taking part in The King’s Cup will each represent one of the charities that are being supported this year by Their Royal Highnesses. These include Child Bereavement UK, Centrepoint, London’s Air Ambulance Charity 30th Anniversary Campaign, and Tusk – four causes of which The Duke is Patron. The Duchess will support four of her patronages: Action on Addiction, Place2Be, the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families, and The Royal Foundation in connection with Her Royal Highness’s longstanding work on Early Years.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will compete against one another and six other teams in state of the art Fast-40 boats. The regatta will include a number of races, and will begin at 1000hrs. The winning team will be awarded The King’s Cup trophy at a public prize giving ceremony in the early afternoon, held at the SailGP Race Village along Cowes seafront towards Egypt Point.

The King’s Cup, of which Land Rover is Presenting Partner, will take place ahead of the inaugural Cowes SailGP and Cowes Week. Members of the public are invited to watch the race from the SailGP Race Village, which will be free to access and include a 500-seater grandstand. Footage from the race will play on large screens with live commentary, and there will be a number of activities for families to enjoy along the waterfront.

The Duke and Duchess are strong advocates for sport, and have undertaken work both in the UK and overseas to highlight the positive impact that sport can have on the individual and within local communities. The Duchess in particular champions how the benefits of sport, nature and the outdoors can impact childhood development, and lead to improved physical and mental wellbeing for all. Their Royal Highnesses hope that The King’s Cup will become an annual event, bringing greater awareness to the wider benefits of sport, whilst also raising support and funds for the causes that The Duke and Duchess support.

Catch up on The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s most recent engagements in the latest issue of Royal Life.

A speech delivered by The Duke of Sussex at Dr. Jane Goodall’s Roots & Shoots Global Leadership Meeting

Thank you very much. I really hope everyone is having a great time in Windsor this week and that you’re all using this opportunity to learn so much more about each and every one of your communities that effectively cover the whole globe. I’m also incredibly excited to be with you today as I’ve heard so much about the Roots and Shoots programme and the wonderful work that you do.

I met Jane last year, and my affirmation was probably similar to how you all felt this week when you met her for the first time. That she is a woman of kindness, warmth, immense knowledge and a softness that’s needed by mankind just as much as it is chimpkind. I’ve been admiring her work since I was a kid and it was so wonderful to find that she was even more amazing in person. She even treated me to a chimp welcome which only Jane can do! Well, and chimps!

We also had the opportunity to discuss our shared belief that conservation and community engagement go hand-in-hand. I truly believe that the heart of conservation and sustainability is about people. For any of our efforts to succeed, an inclusive, community-centred approach where they benefit from safeguarding their natural assets, is what works; and we have seen that proven time and time again, but sadly not to scale quite yet.

Jane, if I may, and I also agree that young people have the power, the compassion and the tools to save our planet. I hope you all know what a big job we have to do. I say we – I still include myself in this.

Just as Jane has a legacy, and I have a legacy – you have a legacy too.  As leaders in your communities striving to making a positive impact, you have a responsibility to set an example with the choices you make, not only in your work but in your personal life too – others will follow, perhaps they already do.

This is why the Roots and Shoots programme is so inspiring.

When I heard that all of you here today are part of a network of more than 150,000 Roots and Shoots groups representing almost 60 countries now -it’s easy to see the potential you all have to make a massive impact in the places you live and together reaching right around the world. As we all now know, in the world we live in today, we’ve polluted the air and oceans, flattened rainforests, and burned through the world’s resources.

96 percent of ALL mammals on earth are either livestock or humans. That means just 4 percent of the animals on this planet are wild.

Whether it be habitat encroachment, huge bush fires, or dangerous levels of carbon emissions — we have contributed to the problem, and now we need to be the ones to create the solutions.

The good news is that young people like you don’t need to be convinced that we must urgently intervene; you are actively doing this every single day, and your dedication to effecting change is outstanding.

As my grandmother The Queen once said – ‘Sometimes the world’s problems are so big we think we can do little to help. On our own we cannot end wars or wipe out injustice, but the cumulative impact of thousands of small acts of goodness can be bigger than we imagine.’

I have had the privilege of seeing this happen first-hand through my work as Commonwealth Youth Ambassador, and as President of the Queen’s Commonwealth Trust. From New Zealand to Zambia, I’ve been lucky enough to meet incredible people all over the world who are leading the way in coming up with sustainable solutions – they have developed ways to turn recycled plastic into bricks, create textiles and clothing from 100% sustainable materials, and found ways to use solar-powered energy to light up huge rural communities.

It’s innovations like these, born from the creativity of young people’s minds, which will turn the tide for humanity and preserve our planet for future generations.

I also read that one of Jane’s mottos is “think global, act local.” That’s incredibly powerful and it’s what all of you are doing, so well done, keep up the good work and always remember change begins right there…. with you.

Thank you.

The Duke of Rothesay will Visit Shetland

Saturday 27^th July

The Duke of Rothesay will visit Old Scatness Broch and Iron Age Village to tour the site, meet representatives from the Shetland Amenity Trust and hear about some of their initiatives, including Shetland Wool Week and a ‘Redd Up’.

His Royal Highness will meet representatives of the Shetland Wool Week, which is celebrating its 10^th anniversary this year, and will hear about the plans for this year’s event. Shetland Wool Week, which uses The Duke of Rothesay’s ‘Campaign for Wool’ as inspiration, was launched in 2009 to promote and celebrate the Shetland wool industry and its heritage.

The Duke will then tour the Old Scatness Broch and Iron Age Village and will hear about the excavation works and the history of the site. His Royal Highness will visit a reconstructed Roundhouse.

His Royal Highness will then visit a local beach where a ‘Redd Up’ (Clean Up) will be taking place.

Shetland Amenity Trust

Shetland Amenity Trust strives to preserve and enhance Shetland’s cultural and natural heritage. The Trust was created in 1983 and has since delivered an extensive range of heritage and culture projects, in partnership with a range of local, national and international agencies.

Shetland Wool Week

Shetland Wool Week is a celebration of Britain’s most northerly native sheep, the Shetland textile industry and the rural farming community on these islands.  Shetland wool is a world class natural fibre, with a long standing reputation for quality, strength and excellence from the fleece to the textile products.

Since its conception ten years ago, Shetland Wool Week has grown into an internationally acclaimed event. This year there will be over 400 events with an extensive range of exhibitions, classes, tours and experiences, which will cover many different subjects.  These will include; weaving, spinning, dyeing, Fair Isle and lace knitting, croft tours and spinning mill tours.  The event, which is run by Shetland Amenity Trust, has grown to an extent that nearly 900 people will be attending this September, approximately 75% of these from overseas.

The Campaign for Wool

The Campaign for Wool is a global endeavour initiated by its Patron, His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, in order to raise awareness amongst consumers about the unique, natural, renewable and biodegradable benefits offered by the fibre.

The Prince of Wales launched the Campaign for Wool in January 2010 as an initiative to expand the market for British and Commonwealth wool and promote awareness of its environmental benefits. On hearing about the low prices British farmers were receiving for their wool, The Prince of Wales convened a group of representatives from the fashion and interior design industries to see what could be done.

Since its launch, The Campaign for Wool has influenced a new demand for wool on an international scale, and its efforts have seen an outstanding threefold increase in the price farmers receive for their wool.

Old Scatness Broch & Iron Age Village
Old Scatness Broch and Iron Age Village is one of the best examples in the world of an Iron Age site.  Along with two other sites in Shetland, Jarlshof and Mousa, it is now on the UK tentative list for UNESCO World Heritage Status as the ‘Zenith of Iron Age Shetland’.

Lying undiscovered for hundreds of years, Old Scatness Broch and Iron Age Village was hidden from the world under grassy mounds near Sumburgh Airport.  During the construction of an access road for the airport in 1975, a digger cut into one of these mounds and made the remarkable discovery.  At first a Broch emerged, a structure now believed to date to between 200-400BC.  The road was re-aligned to protect the structure and it wasn’t until some twenty years later that excavations of the site began.

Excavations were led by Shetland Amenity Trust through an ‘Access to Heritage’ project which aimed to excavate the site to the highest possible standard, whilst breaking down perceived academic barriers of archaeology.  Local volunteers were involved in the excavation and took the opportunity to train alongside students from the University of Bradford.  The unparalleled remains of an Iron Age drystone village emerged, including a broch and domestic roundhouses and later Pictish wheelhouses.   Reconstructions have been built on site representing the Roundhouse and Wheelhouses that were discovered and the site has been open to the public every summer since, engaging new generations and visitors in this incredible find.

Da Voar Redd Up

‘Da Voar Redd Up’, meaning ‘The Spring Clean Up’, has been running since 1987. It is a mass participation clean-up of Shetland’s beaches and roadside verges that happens every Spring, and increasingly in between. Over 4,500 people participate in the Redd Up each year, amounting to approximately 20% of the Shetland population, making it the largest participatory beach clean in the country.

The Shetland Amenity Trust has been running Da Voar Redd Up since its inception and it is supported by the ‘Dunna Chuck Bruck’ – ‘bruck’ being the Shetland word for litter. Over 104,500 people have participated since it began and have collected nearly 2,000 tonnes of litter.

Catch up on Prince Charles and Camilla’s most recent engagements in the latest issue of Royal Life.

The Duke of Rothesay Undertakes Engagements in Caithness

Monday 29^th July 2019

The Duke of Rothesay will visit the offices of Beatrice Offshore Windfarm Limited and SSE Renewables in Wick to mark the official opening of the Beatrice Offshore Windfarm, Scotland’s largest wind farm generating enough energy to power 450,000 homes.

The 588MW Beatrice Offshore Windfarm is the world’s fourth largest offshore wind farm – and Scotland’s biggest. Costing £2.5bn, Beatrice Offshore Windfarm is the largest-ever single private investment in Scotland, developed by Scottish headquartered renewable energy firm SSE Renewables, with Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and Red Rock Power Limited.

Situated 13km off the coast of Caithness, its 84 turbines will generate enough energy to power 450,000 homes, making a sizeable contribution to the GB power grid. As Scotland’s single largest source of renewable energy, Beatrice is making a major contribution towards offsetting harmful carbon emissions, combating climate change and meeting our net zero ambitions.

At peak construction, around 1,500 people were employed across all operations onshore and offshore and its construction has helped grow and support the British supply chain. Companies to benefit from contracts included CS Wind’s Machrahanish factory for towers, Global Energy Group’s Nigg Energy Park for turbine assembly, JDR Cables based in Hartlepool for array cables, Siemens Gamesa in Hull for blade manufacturing and Wick-based GMR Henderson for the restoration and development of the operations and maintenance base.

Construction started in May 2016, completed on time and under budget, breaking new ground in the offshore wind industry, globally.  Through the building of Beatrice, £20m has been invested in the rejuvenation of Wick’s harbour front. Part of this investment has included the redevelopment of two, 200-year old buildings designed by Scottish architect, Thomas Telford which houses the operations and maintenance base for the project.

Up to 90 employees will be based in the buildings, with the majority coming from the local area.  In addition Beatrice community benefit funds have been established to deliver sustainable investment in the local community for the lifetime of the project and are worth a total of £34m over the lifetime of the wind farm.

The largest proportion of these funds, £28m, will be distributed through the Scottish Government’s Coastal Communities Fund. The remaining £6m will be the Beatrice Partnership Fund, which will be split between communities in Highland (£4m) and Moray (£2m).

Catch up on Prince Charles and Camilla’s most recent engagements in the latest issue of Royal Life.

The Duke of Sussex to visit Sheffield

Thursday, 25th July 2019

The Duke of Sussex will visit Sheffield on Thursday 25th July for three separate engagements. The Duke will visit organisations with a focus on supporting children, higher education, and the rehabilitation of wounded, injured and sick Servicemen and women.

His Royal Highness will first visit Sheffield Children’s Hospital to officially open the new wing. On arrival, The Duke will sign the Visitors Book, previously signed by Diana, Princess of Wales on a visit in November 1989. HRH will meet patients and their families on one of the Hospital’s four new wards, as well as children enjoying the new Play Room. Next The Duke will visit the Plaster Room where children can choose their cast colour, add glitter and choose different characters to make the experience more fun. On departure, The Duke will unveil a plaque to commemorate the opening of the hospital’s new wing.

Next HRH will visit Sheffield Hallam University to learn about their commitment to applied learning in teaching and research. The Duke will meet academics and students demonstrating a Virtual Reality rehabilitation project, which uses technology to make it easier for amputees to train themselves to use prosthetic limbs. HRH will meet academics and students working with the World Health Organisation and the United Nations, who have developed innovative new technology to provide alerts and assistance to field staff working in inhospitable and dangerous parts of the world. Finally, The Duke will meet engineering students who will present a racing car they built, and raced at Silverstone the previous week.

Later that afternoon, as Patron of the Invictus Games Foundation, HRH will visit the Invictus UK Trials, which are hosted and managed by Help for Heroes, Royal British Legion, and the Ministry of Defence. The trials form part of the selection process for the team representing the UK at the forthcoming Invictus Games The Hague 2020 and will see over 350 competitors over five days take part in up to nine sports. At the English Institute of Sport Sheffield, The Duke will meet Wheelchair Basketball competitors, cheer on Powerlifting competitors from the stands with friends and family, before meeting the competitors and taking part in the medal presentation. Afterwards, HRH will join the Swimming medal presentation ceremony, before meeting family and friends of the competitors.

Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust is one of only three dedicated children’s hospital trusts in the UK and provides integrated healthcare for children and young people, including community and mental health care as well as acute and specialist services. The last Royal visit was on 29 November 1989 when Diana, Princess of Wales opened an extension of the Hospital. The award-winning new £40 million wing being opened by The Duke includes four new wards, therapy rooms, a patient dining room, a parent relaxation room, a teenager hangout room and has a Play Tower right at its heart. All 72 new children’s beds have a fold-out bed next to them, giving parents a comfortable place to stay with their child.

Sheffield Hallam University has over 30,000 students and is committed to providing applied learning in order to address the health, cultural, economic and social challenges facing society today. The University has had a number of Royal visits, with Her Majesty The Queen opening City Campus in on 25 March 1994, and His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh visiting on 5 March 1999, and again on 4 December 2007.

This Invictus UK Trials will be held in Sheffield from 22 to 26 July 2019. The trials form part of the selection process for the team representing the UK at the forthcoming Invictus Games The Hague 2020 and will see over 350 competitors take part in traditional Invictus Games sports, including Archery, Athletics, Cycling, Indoor Rowing, Powerlifting, Sitting Volleyball, Swimming, Wheelchair Basketball and Wheelchair Rugby. The UK Trials will hold sporting and family events, as well as recovery and employment symposiums, a veterans’ festival of the Arts, youth and community outreach and more.

Invictus UK, a partnership made up of Help for Heroes, The Royal British Legion and the Ministry of Defence, is the organisation that is responsible for the identification, training and delivery of the UK team to an Invictus Games.

His Royal Highness The Duke of Sussex is the Patron of the Invictus Games Foundation. The Invictus Games Foundation is the international charity that oversees the development of the Invictus Games, an international adaptive multi-sport event in which wounded, injured and sick armed services personnel and veterans participate. It celebrates the power of sport in recovery and how it can help, physically or psychologically, those suffering from injuries or illness.

The Invictus Games use the power of sport to inspire recovery, support rehabilitation and generate a wider understanding and respect for those who serve their country. They recognise the significant contribution made by family and friends in the physical and psychological recovery process and seek to motivate and inspire the competitors – and all who strive to triumph over adversity.

PHOTOGRAPHS OF PRINCE GEORGE TO MARK HIS SIXTH BIRTHDAY

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are very pleased to share three new photographs of Prince George to mark His Royal Highness’s sixth birthday.

Two photographs were taken recently in the garden of their home at Kensington Palace, and the other was taken while on holiday with the family. All were taken by The Duchess of Cambridge.

The Duke of Sussex will attend Dr. Jane Goodall’s Roots & Shoots Global Leadership Meeting

Tuesday, 23rd July 2019

The Duke of Sussex will attend Dr. Jane Goodall’s Roots & Shoots Global Leadership Meeting at St. George’s House, Windsor Castle on Tuesday 23rd July.

Roots & Shoots is a global programme empowering young people of all ages. Through hands on projects chosen by the participants Roots & Shoots works to ignite and inspire the belief that every individual can take action to make the world a better place for people, animals and the environment.

Founded by Dr. Goodall in 1991 with just 12 Tanzanian High School Students from nine schools, Roots & Shoots today involves students in over 50 countries with members ranging from pre-school through university. These individual efforts of the hundreds of thousands of young people around the world are collectively making monumental change. Dr. Goodall has convened a select group of Roots & Shoots students from around the world, annually over the last six years in Windsor, to share their projects, discuss local and global problems and to collectively encourage one another in their work and activism.

The Duke of Sussex is committed to advancing conservation efforts around the world and believes that working with communities is key to ensuring a sustainable future for the planet. In his roles as President of The Queen’s Commonwealth Trust and Commonwealth Youth Ambassador His Royal Highness has had the opportunity to meet young people who are leading the way in coming up with solutions to combat some of the world’s most pressing problems.

Upon arrival at St. George’s House, The Duke will be met by Dr Jane Goodall before listening to an overview of the Roots& Shoots programme. His Royal Highness will then address the programme’s attendees before listening to presentations from representatives from Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas. The Duke will then meet with the young people involved in the Roots & Shoots programme about the issues affecting them before joining a group photo.

Dr Jane Goodall is an ethologist and conservationist known for her study of social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees and first arrived at Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania in July 1960. She has worked extensively on conservation and animal welfare issues. She founded the Jane Goodall Institute in 1977, a global wildlife and environment conservation organisation which works to protect the famous chimpanzees of Gombe National Park in Tanzania. The Institute is widely recognised for community-centred conservation and development programmes in Africa, the ongoing research at Gombe, the Tchimpounga and Chimp Eden sanctuaries for orphan chimpanzees and for her global youth programme Roots & Shoots.

In April 2002 Dr. Goodall was named a UN Messenger of Peace by Kofi Annan and has received many awards and honours.

For more on The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s most recent engagements, be sure to purchase the latest issue of Royal Life magazine here.

Her Majesty The Queen will visit the Queen Victoria’s Palace exhibition at Buckingham Palace

Wednesday, 17th July 2019

Her Majesty The Queen will visit the Queen Victoria’s Palace exhibition at this year’s Summer Opening of the State Rooms at Buckingham Palace on Wednesday, 17th July.

This special exhibition tells the story of Queen Victoria’s life at Buckingham Palace in the year marking the 200th anniversary of her birth.

Visitors will have the opportunity to learn how Queen Victoria shaped the Palace through objects from the Royal Collection. There will also be an immersive experience in the Ballroom transforming it back to how Victoria and Albert would have known it. Projections will return the room to its original decorative scheme, and, through the use of a Victorian illusion technique known as Pepper’s Ghost, a waltz danced at the Crimean Ball of 1856 will be seen.

Key items on display will include Queen Victoria’s Supertunica robe worn for her Coronation in 1838, her costume for the Stuart Ball of 1851 and pages from her illustrated Journals.

Her Majesty will be accompanied on the visit by Tim Knox, Director of the Royal Collection, and will meet key individuals involved in the exhibition.

Catch up on Her Majesty’s most recent engagements in the latest issue of Royal Life.

The Duke of Sussex will attend a Commonwealth Youth Roundtable

Thursday, 11th July 2019

The Duke of Sussex, Commonwealth Youth Ambassador, will meet Youth Ministers from across the Commonwealth for a roundtable discussion at Marlborough House on Thursday, 11th July.

The roundtable, hosted by the Commonwealth Secretary-General, will allow The Duke to hear directly from Youth Ministers on the key issues affecting the Commonwealth’s youth population in their countries, ahead of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 2020 (CHOGM).

Representatives at the roundtable will include ministers responsible for youth engagement from across the Commonwealth. The event will also provide an opportunity for His Royal Highness to share the learnings, ideas and ambitions of the young people he has met from across the network of nations during his first year as Commonwealth Youth Ambassador.

The Commonwealth represents a global network of 53 countries and almost 2.4 billion people, a third of the world’s population, of whom 60 percent are under 30 years old.

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the modern Commonwealth, with old ties and new links enabling cooperation towards social, political and economic development, which is both inclusive and sustainable.

The Duke of Sussex was made a Commonwealth Youth Ambassador by Her Majesty The Queen in 2018. In this role, The Duke will work to create links between young people and youth leaders of the Commonwealth and to encourage them to use Commonwealth platforms to address the social, economic, and environmental challenges of their generation.

His Royal Highness’ work to highlight youth-led initiatives throughout the Commonwealth also extends through his role as President of The Queen’s Commonwealth Trust (QCT), an organisation of which Her Majesty is Patron and The Duchess of Sussex is Vice President. The QCT exists to champion, fund and connect young leaders around the world.

In recent years, The Duke has also been involved in supporting two major projects launched in recognition of Her Majesty’s lifetime of service to the Commonwealth – Queen’s Young Leaders and The Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy.

Today, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s son Archie was christened at Private Chapel at Windsor Castle.

The Prince of Wales, The Duchess of Cornwall, and The Duke & Duchess of Cambridge attended the Christening.

The official photograph above was taken in the Green Drawing Room at Windsor Castle by Chris Allerton.

Seated (L – R): The Duchess of Cornwall, The Duke of Sussex, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, The Duchess of Sussex, The Duchess of Cambridge.

Standing (L – R): The Prince of Wales, Ms Doria Ragland, Lady Jane Fellowes, Lady Sarah McCorquodale, The Duke of Cambridge.

This second photograph of The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, and Archie was taken in the Rose Garden at Windsor Castle on Archie’s christening day.