William met 2022 Earthshot finalists for first time

[TeaForYou]

Remember William's 2022 Earthshot Prize where the finalists were not invited to the ceremony but lots of celebrities were? Well William finally invited them to Windsor where he met them.
Min Wang, whose company, turns desert sand into agricultural land. She invited William to visit one of her project’s sites in China. He said: ‘If I am passing by I will be visiting all of your projects." Amazing. William will visit Earthshot projects if he is passing by.
Finalists will also travel to London where they will attend a forum at Deloitte and will have the chance to meet advisors and potential investors for their projects. I am surprised that has not already happened as that was supposed to be the whole point of Earthshot.

The meeting with finalists was a transparent attempt to defuse the bad press after the Boston 'award' evening.
Boston was a disaster. As with all W and K events it was used by them as PR . Telling the finalists to stay at home while unrelated celebs were flown in was new low
That whole 'eartthshot ' nonsense stinks. The Goldberg awards years ago had a winner who used the term 'earthshot ' and explained how he was inspired by Kennedy's moonshot
Exactly what William said was his 'inspiration ' . What an amazing coincidence.
I assume the people who had the original idea have been fully credited by William. A royalist on here insisted they had . I can't find this acknowledgment that it wasn't a new idea

William and Kate are lazy shock - yes they really have nothing of substance to show for their lives pushing 40. He went to the Windsor Foodbank and took nothing apart from a photo hit and run. Charles is a real worker , Harry points that out in his book and the Queen and Prince Philip well they never stopped - indeed seemed to thrive on it. William's nickname for Kate was doliitle. Quite.

@vera99

I was just thinking about the difference with Charles after I wrote that post ( I really need to stop mumsnet distracting me lol)
And as a life long die hard republican it pains me to admit that Charles appears sincere in this interest in plants / environment / spirituality. He shouldn't be sticking his unelected nose into government though
William is very unlikeable . Maybe it's just his personality but he's cold and arrogant
Turning up to a foodbank with their photographers was typical of their shallow selfish approach
They are too lazy to come up with a new approach and think their appearance is enough . It isn't

Reluctant PR tip to W and K:

Stay away from food banks - it has a whiff of Marie Antoinette about it ( is that a distant tumbril I hear?)

• neither of you have the intelligence or sensitivity to say something appropriate ( Kate was heard to say 'isn't it great these places exist ' at a similar event ....)

Your motives are clear and a blind man on a galloping horse could see you have no sincere interest

Your very existence reinforces the inequality in our society

W and K are useless.

It was beyond a joke to have an award ceremony in the US, invite a bunch of celebrities and not actually ask the award nominees to attend. If Harry and Meghan had done something like that, it would have filled up at least one thread on here with all the frothing and mockery! I don't even dislike William and Kate especially but that whole thing was ridiculous.

I do think the basic idea behind Earthshot is great but the execution smacks of the usual lack of effort and enthusiasm, sadly. Hopefully some good initiatives will be supported through the grants that are being awarded.

Hmmm.. is it any worse than accepting an award (ripple of hopelessness) for exposing racism in the royal family, then saying there was none? Bit laughable. At least earthshot has a laudable goal.

They were given the award for their activism around racial justice and mental health. This has been discussed on multiple threads. What do you think about William not inviting the Earthshot finalists to the award ceremony?

I don't understand the rationale behind the earthshot awards ceremony, but I don't get ceremonies anyway.

It could have been basically a fundraiser, and the nominees wouldn't be contributing.

Would shipping nominees in reduce the funding available for the projects?

They were given the award for their activism around racial justice and mental health. This has been discussed on multiple threads. What do you think about William not inviting the Earthshot finalists to the award ceremony?

Well, it was a Kennedy Foundation award and Kerry Kennedy praised them for challenging institutional racism in the RF, so either she is completely doolally and doesn't know what her own foundation is doing, or the award was (at least in part) for challenging institutional racism in the RF.

Re Earthshot - as I'm sure you know - as the winners were from all over the world they decided for environmental reasons not to fly them in for one night, they attended virtually. Not really that astonishing, some might even say laudable.

The key point is supposed to be introducing them to investors. The initial introductions for 2022 finalists only happened in 2023. So far I do not think anyone has invested.

"Re Earthshot - as I'm sure you know - as the winners were from all over the world they decided for environmental reasons not to fly them in for one night, they attended virtually. Not really that astonishing, some might even say laudable."

So why did the celebrities not attend virtually? They all flew in on private jets, far worse for the environment than the scheduled flights the finalists would have taken.
There is lots of precedent for celebrities attending awards ceremonies virtually. It is hardly a new idea.

So why did the celebrities not attend virtually? They all flew in on private jets, far worse for the environment than the scheduled flights the finalists would have taken.

Have a think about why they might have wanted celebrities there in person, what the value is to the award. Here's a clue - you can find out who attended by looking at the photos that were in the media.
(Also - did they all fly in on private jets, you know that?)

There's a reason it's known as Earthshit on twitter(!)

@hoooops So William is not high profile enough to pull in publicity? They needed David Beckham, Billie Eilish, Ramie Malik, Annie Lennox, Chloe x Halle, Ellie Goulding, Catherine O’Hara, Shailene Woodley and Sir David Attenborough, to pull in media attention? And the finalists and William alone were could not do that then?

Everyone knows the Finalists did not attend because William did not see their presence as necessary. He just wanted a glitzy event with lots of celebrities. He got that, but the public is not as stupid as he appears to think.

So William is not high profile enough to pull in publicity? They needed David Beckham, Billie Eilish, Ramie Malik, Annie Lennox, Chloe x Halle, Ellie Goulding, Catherine O’Hara, Shailene Woodley and Sir David Attenborough, to pull in media attention? And the finalists and William alone were could not do that then?

Basically yes. Nobody would televise, and if they did nobody would watch, William doing a zoom call for an hour. Celebrity presenters, glitzy red carpet, star musical acts, yes. (BTW Billie Eilish performed remotely.)

As I said, the Ripple of Hope award was given for a few different things. I'm not going to participate in any more derailment anyway, it's been discussed elsewhere.

Re: Earthshot. So it wasn't a good idea for them to come to the actual award ceremony but now they've been flown to Windsor apparently? I still say it was a bizarre decision. I understand wanting the glitz and glamour for publicity but all that to honour people who aren't invited looks ridiculous. It just does.

The public really are starting to see through them. A poster above called PW 'Cold and arrogant'
Excellent description.

Good point. Flying them to Windsor purely to meet William is apparently fine.

Except the publicity was largely negative and not about the celebrities.
William and Kate are terrible at PR. They keep making basic mistakes. I think the real issue is that they do not give a shit about their causes and it shows in the decisions they make.
I think Kate seems a much nicer person than Charles. But I do not think Charles would make these basic mistakes.

Flying them to Windsor purely to meet William is apparently fine.

It wasn't purely to meet William.

Except the publicity was largely negative and not about the celebrities.

I imagine the main thing for them was the tv coverage on BBC and PBS.

Well, is flying a problem or not then? That's the point. Why on earth have an award ceremony and all that song and dance with no nominees, if they're happy to travel in any case?

Will work for CBE or collect points ultimately for knighthood. (Sorry DB you've got to pay your taxes , only us royals that dish them out get to pull that one I'm afraid.).

Well, is flying a problem or not then? That's the point. Why on earth have an award ceremony and all that song and dance with no nominees, if they're happy to travel in any case?

Really struggling to believe that I have to explain this, but flying in order to attend a celebrity event for a few hours is not the same as flying in order to attend a week-long programme to further your project, meet potential partners, funders, advisers, experts etc.