Monarchist’s Welcomed Princess Ann To NZ

New Zealanders today welcomed the arrival of Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal, on her latest visit to New Zealand.

Princess Anne is in New Zealand for the 2003 Commonwealth Study Conference. This is the 9th conference since they were founded by HRH The Duke of Edinburgh in 1956. For the first time since their inception His Royal Highness was not able to attend.

The Princess Royal will be received at Government House, Wellington, by Her Excellency the Governor-General, and later attend a reception for the Commonwealth Study Conference New Zealand Charitable Trust, also at Government House.

On Sunday the Princess Royal meets with Representatives of The Save The Children, and will be the guest of the Governor-General for dinner at Government House. On Monday she leaves Wellington for the next stage of the visit.

It is expected that Princess Anne will visit Auckland, the Far North, Hamilton, and the West Coast, in what the Department of Internal Affairs has described as a "private visit".

Following her visit to this country, Princess Anne will move on to Australia, where the remainder of the Commonwealth Study Conference is being held, and where she is expected to watch the Scottish rugby team take on France in the Rugby World Cup.

Commonwealth Study Conferences have been held every six years since 1956, with three being held in the UK, three in Canada and two in Australia. The 1986 Conference was jointly organised by Australia and India. The former Governor-General of Australia, the Hon Sir William Deane, is Conference Chairman this year, and this Conference is jointly staged by Australia and New Zealand. It is envisaged that the Tenth Commonwealth Study Conference will be held in 2007, and subsequent conferences will occur at intervals of four years.

The first Commonwealth Study Conference set out to provide an opportunity for people from all over the Commonwealth and all walks of life to leave behind their usual roles and, with a diverse group of people, examine the relationship between industry and the community around it. The purpose was not to produce high sounding resolutions and weighty conclusions but to challenge the participants' assumptions and prejudices; to give them the chance to examine real situations and the issues arising from the interaction of businesses, their employees and the communities in which they operated.

Forty-seven years later, many of these features have been adopted by others and issues such as the environment which were new in 1956 are world-wide concerns. Yet the Commonwealth Study Conferences remain a unique training and development opportunity for personal development for prospective leaders which participants continue to find valuable. Past members have said that they continued to discover insights from their study conference experience many years after.

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