Fundraising underway for £60m yacht gift for Queen

Fundraising | Celina Ribeiro | 29 May 2012

A group of volunteers has launched an international effort to raise £60m to buy Queen Elizabeth II a yacht to celebrate her Diamond Jubilee.

The group has expressed the hope that every person in the Commonwealth and UK will donate at least £1 via their mobile to raise the funds needed to buy the luxury yacht for the Queen, which will also be available to the 600 charities of which she is patron to use for fundraising purposes.

Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove initially mooted the idea of buying Her Majesty a yacht to celebrate the 60th anniversary of her reign earlier this year, but he was soon shouted down for proposing the expensive gift be funded by taxpayer money.

Giveonthemobile and Charities Aid Foundation will be processing the donations, with the former company the main driver behind the yacht appeal and waiving its usual fees on mobile donations. A spokesman for the campaign said that a group of volunteers, including “captains of industry”, had rallied together to develop the campaign and brought on the two companies as a means of facilitating the donations. A list of supporters is already live on the Jubilee Yacht Appeal website.

Individuals have a number of text-to-donate options as part of the appeal. They can text 'YACHT' to donate to buy the Queen a yacht, or text 'NOT' to make a donation to the royal's charities.

Elaine Skinner, chief executive of giveonthemobile and the director of the yacht appeal, said that the new yacht would replace the HMY Britannia which was decommissioned in 1997.

“A Diamond Jubilee Yacht dedicated to HM The Queen and her charities would be a celebration of her achievements, a beacon of hope and reminder of what we can achieve as a nation when we all pull together,” she said.

Comments

[Cancel] | Reply to:

Name *

Email *

Organisation

Job Title

Comments *

Verification *

* Please read our Community Standards

Close »

Community Standards

The civilsociety.co.uk community and comments board is intended as a platform for informed and civilised debate.

We hope to encourage a broad range of views, however, there are standards that we expect commentators to uphold. We reserve the right to delete or amend any comments that do not adhere to these standards.

We welcome:

Robust but respectful debate
Strongly held opinions
Intelligent relevant discussion
The sharing of relevant experiences
New participants

We will not publish:

Rude, threatening, offensive, obscene or abusive language, or links to such material
Links to commercial organisations or spam postings. The comments board is not an advertising platform
The posting of contact details for yourself or others
Comments intended for malicious purpose or mindless abuse
Comments purporting to be from another person or organisation under false pretences
Gratuitous criticism, commentary or self-promotion
Any material which breaches copyright or privacy laws, or could be considered libellous
The use of the comments board for the pursuit or extension of personal disputes

Be aware:

Views expressed on the comments board are left at users’ discretion and are in no way views held or supported by Civil Society Media
Comments left by others may not be accurate, do not rely on them as fact
You may be misunderstood - sarcasm and humour can easily be taken out of context, try to be clear

Please:

Enjoy the opportunity to express your opinion and respect the right of others to express theirs
Confine your remarks to issues rather than personalities

Together we can keep our community a polite, respectful and intelligent platform for discussion.