Charity Engagement Yesterday

[AshTreesEverywhere]

The Royal Family attend public engagements that are jollies such as Film Premiers and Wold Cup Finals. But yesterday William and Kate visited a Food Bank. So what did this work involve?

William and Kate travelled 10-15 minutes to the Windsor Foodshare, a food bank. They played around with a shopping cart and cracked “jokes” about who was being more useful (neither). They met with some of the food bank workers and barely spent an hour on this photo-op.

That is one of their average 150 engagements a year.

@samcro they were there in the morning - the foodbank opens to provide donations to members of the public later in the afternoon on Thursday from that location so they weren't stopping anyone accessing the foodbank or causing disruption

also on the volunteering front I recall William said he was a volunteer for SHOUT during pandemic - which was text based support - I'd imagine for many well known people offering regular time on mental health support services via text or phone could be a way of contributing as a volunteer but without the circus that would erupt if your in person volunteering was revealed

Christ almighty, you're really scraping the barrel 🙄

@Novella4

How do you know they turned up empty handed? Were you there? Are you running that particular food bank? Maybe they gave a cash gift, or maybe they are going to donate a vaster quantity of food items that can be just handed over in a couple of bags for life.

Your post however, is tone deaf. I volunteer in a food bank and we could definitely do with extra exposure, especially with the cost of living crisis.

novella

Not what I asked and you weren’t questioned but like another poster mentioned you are off on another subject. Just showing the point I made about turning it into a RF bitch fest. Which is fine if that is your thing. But not what this thread is about. As I am sure you have the intelligence to realise.

@AshTreesEverywhere

By that reckoning, every man on the planet is sexist. They all love a good joke about how much women natter.

In this house it’s the other way round. My bloke talks incessantly.

I hope William has carried on with SHOUT. A very good friend of mine does it, she is brilliant, we met through our voluntary work together, she wanted me to join up, but I was busy with another charity.
I agree it would be a good thing for William to carry on with. Totally anonymous.

@Prescottdanni123 If all the men you know think that is an acceptable joke, then yes all the men you know are sexist.

Sexist now?

What utter pish poppycock.

🤣😂

Mine has cloth ears (AKA selective hearing) with all my nattering!

If there was time spent strategizing, this visit would have been far better. They would have encouraged people to donate and posted a link to the donation page on their social media.
The only strategizing is how can we do an engagement that gets lots of publicity for William and Kate with the minimum amount of work.

Let's face it, some of the posters here would complain if they announced they were doing these things. Always gotta find something to complain about.

The staff do all that.

The staff will do a lot of the setting up or it would take days of their time. But I would be very surprised if they were not involved in deciding on the strategy and what they were going to do once there, what the media strategy should be and what they should wear. I think it's unlikely they get woken up by the butler, told what to wear, where they're going and what they're doing without having some say in that. Plus the prep is only useful if they do it themselves - it hardly helps them in a conversation with a food bank manager if the staff member knows all about it but they don't.

I also often make jokes to male talkative friends as well. It is a joke. You are being way too sensitive over this.

My male workmate joked that he has had earache ever since joining a team full of women. He also told us that same day he loves working with us because of the hilarious stories we tell. It is a bit of harmless joking.

@JaneJeffer

Have any of the local ruminants been at your Ash? There are some opinions that it cleanses their systems with the resultant bout of diarrhoea. Look for signs of gnashing. 👍🏼

Good grief, if they can't think of a few relevant questions to people volunteering in a foodbank, without an Aide prepping them on their 'strategy', there is something very very wrong.
And they are more cut off from the real world than I first thought.

If they'd taken a donation and made it known to the media, the same people would be talking about how meagre it was in relation to their wealth, and that they should have given much more.

And if they'd encouraged others to donate, the same posters would have said something along the lines of 'The cheek of those pampered people living in palaces telling struggling families what to do with their money!'

Just admit that nothing they could do with please you and we'll be working on a more honest basis here.

They are not asking incisive questions. They say things like how important foodbanks are. Its not rocket science.

Sad to see all those excusing the sexism.

How do you know they didn’t donate food?
Royal donations of any kind are usually made without a fanfare.

@ArcaneWireless round these parts we use ash for making hurleys. Always handy to have one nearby in case you need to give someone a good walloping.

Agree
but then I was radicalised by the good women of the FWR board years ago

The foodbank world does have an element of politicisation - Trussell Trust are not universally admired for example (I know this food bank isn't a TT one) so whilst not comparable to briefings about possibility of peace accord in Middle East some insight into any political minefields to avoid would have been necessary.

@myrtleWilson I know about this political minefields with foodbanks. But you do not need briefing to avoid them, just common sense. I can't think of one single question someone half intelligent could ask in this context that would be an issue. I mean you are hardly going to ask - So do Muslim people feel welcome coming to this foodbank?

Sad to see all those excusing the sexism.
What are you nattering about?

Not always. I couldn't move for reading about Charles's fridges