Thatcham company Xtrac receives royal visit from Princess Anne

A Thatcham company received a visit from the Princess Royal last week.

Princess Anne met with recipients of her Princess Royal Training Award, assessed by the City & Guilds Group, for which she is president.

The Princess Royal Training awards, in their sixth year, celebrate organisations across the UK that have demonstrated exceptional commitment to training and development.

The visit, on Wednesday, May 11, followed a ceremony in April 2021 where 46 businesses were presented with awards.

On arriving at Xtrac to meet apprentices and graduates and hear about their training, the princess was received by Lord-Lieutenant of Berkshire James Puxley.

Mr Puxley began the proceedings by presenting chairwoman Dr Ann Limb and group chief executive of the City and Guilds of London Institute Kirstie Donnelly.

He introduced president Peter Digby, non-executive director Joe Greenwell and CEO Adrian Moore.

Mr Digby said: “Having twice received the Princess Royal Training Award, including in 2018, we were delighted to accommodate this visit following the recent official opening of our new apprenticeship academy.

“We warmly welcomed her gracious comments about the hard work we put into our apprenticeship and graduate training schemes and that we should be justly proud of our success and achievements.”

Princess Anne also discussed women in engineering with Kirstie Donnelly, apprentice Faye Cooke and graduate engineers Jessica Matthews and Kate Parton.