Westminster Business School Blog A Memorable Day representing International Student House and meeting The Queen at Buckingham Palace

A Memorable Day representing International Student House and meeting The Queen at Buckingham Palace

October 22, 2013
Student Life
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This year I have been selected to be a Senior Residence Advisor (SRA) at my halls, International Student House. As SRA part of my job is to represent ISH at events. On Friday the 18th October I was privileged enough to attend a reception held by The Queen at Buckingham palace to represent Youth, Education and The Commonwealth. Myself and Nehal D. Das (also an ISH SRA) were the only Undergraduate Students at the reception on Friday. We were joined by High Commissioners, Global CEOs, Vice Counsellors and Treasuries from all across the world.
On arrival at Buckingham Palace we were kindly greeted by some of the Queen’s guards who directed us towards the first reception room where we were able to meet some of the people who represent companies, universities as well as commonwealth from all over the world. I have personally never seen anything like the inside of this palace. Everything was perfect and nothing was out of place. The roof was covered in a golden colour and the hall ways in the palace were so spacious covered in some of the best art work I have seen. We were able to greet His Excellence High Commissioner from Zambia, India, Mozambique as well as Mauritius etc. It was truly overwhelming meeting so many globally recognised personalities in one room. After we spent about half an hour we were welcomed by the Queen and this was where we all got to greet her personally one by one. Once we greeted the queen we then made our way into the Ball Room where we had a classical Orchestra joined by the commonwealth choir preform three pieces of music for us. When this was finished we all made our way back into the reception room where we got a chance to have some refreshments including gold leaves on chocolate tarts. Once we were in the hall, we had a chance to speak to Princess Beatrice for about 15 minutes mostly talking about our studies. After our conversation with Princess Beatrice we were then joined by the Queen and were able to speak to her. She asked where we studied and then went on to say we looked nice and how encouraged she was to know that the students in London study such diverse subjects and then she proceeded to join Prince Philip and they made their way out of the room.

After they had left we ended up speaking to some more High Commissioners as well as a lot of the Royal family treasuries. It was great to learn so much about how they run such an effective and perfect service in the palace.
As a young boy growing up in South Africa I only dreamed about the Queen and London. Now being able to say I study in this amazing city and being able to say I have had tea with the queen is only but a dream come true. It is truly a day I would never forget. I would say there is a scripture in the bible which reads – Ephesians 3:20 “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.” This has helped me to see that no matter how big my dreams or visions are God is able to do a lot more than what I dream.

This blog post was written by Heinrich Koorts – Westminster Business School