prince William - earthshot prize

[Samcro]

could not believe it when I saw the advert for it last night. so PW is presenting this thing. the same Prince who flies all over the world.
obviously won't be watching as him and DA lecturing people about climate change is so hypocritical.
(rant over)

Yes, Roussette. Funnily, analysing data sets to draw useful and robust conclusions is an area where I have an awful lot of experience.

Personally, I’d also have acknowledged that I was only dealing with publicly available data, which is necessarily limited. And would have noted the impossibility of proving the counterfactual when drawing my conclusions - it’s impossible to say what would have happened to these charities’ revenues if they had not had a royal patron, so it’s very difficult to assess the added value on just that metric.

I realise you have experience in this, yes.

I'm not being snarky here but there was someone on MN who over recent weeks has been continually checking me on anything legal to do with PA ...they had a lot of experience in the legal field. That wasn't you too, was it? Genuine question, I can't search as I'm on a phone.

We're surrounded by experts on MN.

Of course that study can only look at publicly available data, not sure what the point is, you are saying they need to put a disclaimer saying that I presume.

I was initially commenting on the PA thread, yes, Roussette, but decided there was little point in continuing to do so, as many of the posters on that thread were quite convinced they knew everything that was necessary to know about the law in this area.

What I’m saying in relation to this study (and I don’t dispute that they did a lot of work on it, at all) is that they set out a wide-reaching aim: “to help charities make evidence-based management decisions about whether to seek and retain Royal patron”. It then makes it clear however that the sole outcome that is analysable and comparable across the wide set of charities which have Royal patronages is revenue, so they used that.

Having picked that as their sole focus they acknowledge “we could get no clear answer on the effect of Royal patronages on charities’ revenue. This is because charities’ revenues are very jumpy and uncorrelated with each other, which meant that our various analyses returned answers that were either obviously implausible, or had huge ranges that included both negative and positive values”

They also openly accept a number of limitations inherent with this approach - for example, their conclusions about having a royal patron “may omit important elements of work behind the scenes, but no information is available about that”.

Given this, I find their headline “Royal Patrons don’t seem to help charities much” a bit eye raising. “Seem” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence!

As the author herself said in the tweet I posted above, she is trying to do science here. Science generally doesn’t involve drawing wide-reaching conclusions out of limited and inconsistent data…

In your post you also 'seem' to think there is a lot of work involved behind scenes, but you have no idea how much if any is from the royals. The person is working with the information that they have. You are making assumptions of work that you do not know exists, nor how much if it does exist.

Flights aside Prince William also lives in and has to light and heat a massive mansion. They also drive huge, gas guzzling cars. Honestly 🙄

So it was you Serenster?

Blimey, I'm but a mere mortal in your expert presence! (take that as a lighthearted joke please!)
During lockdowns my brain shrank to the size of a small baked bean but it is growing again now 🤣😂

@Serenster that whole site is about evidence-based donations, not simply the Royal Family as Patrons. They are open about accepting the limitations of their analysis because all they can look at is a correlation. No one can analyse a clear causation. So yes there is evidence to suggest that a Royal Patron makes no difference to funding.
As you say a Royal Patron can have other benefits. For example raising awareness of an issue as Princess Diana did with AIDS. But the current RF members stick to safe charities and issue that are already well-known, so I cant see what they add here?
The other thing they can add is boosting and cheering up the people who are helped by a charity. I am sure for example that people in a hospice visited by a RF member get a boost from it. But is this worth the vast amount of money they are paid for it? Is it good value?

Society has changed. And the RF has not. Instead, they seem to be clinging to the way things have always been done - look at the incredibly old-fashioned clothes the children wear.
Ultimately though none of us talking about this on here matters. There will be more revelations I suspect about Andrew and that will damage the RF. There is another Crown episode coming up that will highlight Charles behaviour which will also damage the RF. Is a bland couple William and Kate enough to rescue the RF from that? I don't know, we will see.

And a key role of Patrons is to help bring funding in.

@julieca you do know The Crown is fiction, don’t you?

Fiction or not, people look at it and take it as gospel. That's what julieca is quite obviously getting at.

A lot of the crown is based on truth. Of course, it is fictionalised though. No one knows the exact conversations had and some things are changed slightly.
But how much is fictionalised and how much is true, the next series of the Crown will damage the RF. Because Charles did cheat on Diana, she was seen as a broodmare by the RF, and Charles did say to Camilla he wished he was a Tampax up inside her.

Yes, Roussette, I know they do. That’s the problem. I didnt think it was clear that that was what Julieca meant though. If it was then fair enough.

A lot of the crown is based on truth.

Well it is based on known events that actually happened. Much of the dialogue and interactions are fictitious and guesswork though because the writers were not present when these things happened. It may or may not be accurate but it shouldn’t be used as a reliable source.

@smilesy of course the dialogues are fictitious. I am not stupid.
But the actual events the next series will cover are hugely damaging to Charles and Camilla.

Who on earth uses it as a reliable source??? No one!

Bottom line is...the bad bits of the RF are highlighted in the Crown and it reminds people about the stupid and awful things they do. Like tampongate. All acted out as a drama.

Obviously writers weren't there at the time lolol, surely that doesn't need pointing out??!

Yes, but what did you all think of his efforts on the Earthshot documentary last night? Do you now think it's a good thing that he's doing?

Lots of people will have forgotten about Tampongate, and many younger people won't know about it. That happened.

Some people do believe it completely. I know a few that do, Roussette although I know you are not one of them 🤣

@waltzingparrot. I keep asking what anyone else thought of it too 😂

I've never watched it, not even one minute of it!
I lived through all this stuff, don't want it dramatised.

Waltzing. I think it's a good initiative and anything to highlight climate change is welcomed

@smilesy and people keep answering. I have three times on this thread!

It's funny innit...a thread about W and an initiative of his getting sidelined and posters not liking that.
That's what happens. A lot.

Climate change does not need to be highlighted. It is action we need.
I didn't watch the documentary. Not interested. I want actions and real change.

@julieca

Lots of people will have forgotten about Tampongate, and many younger people won't know about it. That happened.

I always find it interesting that with tampongate, what people care about is a lighthearted exchange two sexual partners had with each other, and how they like to use that to denigrate them. And not, you know, the massive breach of security and privacy that that entailed. Again, it’s like you are dealing with game playing pieces, not real people with feelings (and rights!).

Yes I know you have answered Roussette, as has Samcro, but that was before the programme aired. I have asked a few times if anyone else watched it and what they thought. I am also aware threads get side tracked and that’s fine, but it would still be good to know what people actually think about the programme itself.