December 2013

Chairman's letter / Council update
Dear all,

As you will already have read in our previous update, Peter McNulty, Jill Maguire and Julie Dunk stepped down from the Council at the AGM.

Peter and Jill will both continue as practising members of the IoCF and Julie (and Blue) will be at next year's conference.

In his address to the AGM, Peter paid tribute to the invaluable contributions which Jill and Julie have made to the Institute. It is now our turn to thank Peter for his dedication and leadership; steering us through times of change and growth with hard work, quiet confidence and his inimitable wit! Peter's passion for the work of the Institute in maintaining the quality of civil funerals and supporting its members was always at the forefront of everything he did as Chairman and Council member. We will miss him and wish him all the best in his 'semi-retirement' / bowls career!

Council Members
The AGM saw Sally Band, Andrew Hamel-Cooke and Sarah Willis voted on to the Board. The first meeting of the new Council, held earlier this month, co-opted Tricia Empson.

At that meeting, I (Christine Ogden) was elected as the new Chairman of the Institute and Janice Thomson as Secretary. Jeff Baker and Karen Hopkins offered to take on the roles of Joint Treasurers, and Viv O'Neill will continue in her role as Conference Organiser.

You can put faces to all these names by visiting the Council of Management page under 'About the IoCF' on the website.

The meeting of the new Council held last week covered a very full agenda, as ever, and the energy and enthusiasm of all the members demonstrated that we have a very strong team to take the Institute forward into 2014.

Finances
The financial report delivered at the AGM highlighted the effect that rising costs have had on the Institute.

We are reducing our postage costs enormously as the members continue to promote email as being the preferred method of sending and receiving the feedback questionnaires, however, the subscription fee for joining the Institute has remained the same since 2009. Members present at the AGM indicated their support for the Council in the need to increase subscriptions and a decision was taken at the recent Council meeting to increase them by £3 per month (£36 per annum) to £276 per annum.

This will not take effect until 1st August 2014 for existing members but will apply to new members from 1st January 2014.

Council believes this remains a very realistic and reasonable fee for membership of a professional association which, and along with the Public Liability Insurance and new ID badges (to be introduced very soon), provides many benefits to support all members. Do take a look at the website to remind yourselves of the full list of benefits; all of which are invaluable to the, often lonely, career of a self-employed funeral celebrant.

The Council and the year ahead
So what will the Council be doing in the year ahead? As has always been the case, the Council will protect the quality and professionalism of the service that members of the IoCF provide, and will support them as much as possible to deliver that. It will continue to promote the Institute nationally through trade events and publications and to the wider public at every opportunity.

We will be considering and acting upon all the suggestions which have come from members at conference and on the IoCF Forum and look forward to hearing more from you.

The members are the Institute of Civil Funerals, as much as the elected Council members are, and we value the work you do to promote the Institute where you are.

If you would like to learn more about the work of the Council, or if you are considering joining us, we would like to extend an invitation to all members to join us in an open session of our next Council meeting to be held on Tuesday, 11th February 2014 at the IoCF office in Kimbolton. Do please contact Barbara if you would like to spend part of the day with us.

We look forward to seeing you then or at our Best Practice Day taking place on Saturday, April 5th 2014 at Buckden Towers - you will receive more information about the day very shortly but do put it in your diary and consider contacting other members, via the Forum, to arrange shared transport.

 

Of course that diary will be your new one for 2014 and on behalf of all the Council I send our good wishes for a very happy Christmas to all members and may the New Year be a great one for everyone associated with the Institute.

 
Best wishes
Christine Ogden
 

 
Admin News

Christmas Office Hours
The office will be closed from noon on Tuesday 24th December until Wednesday 1st January, reopening 10am on Thursday 2nd January. In case of emergencies please contact Christine Ogden on 01507 313164 or 07748 166236.
 

December marketing tips
Take some chocolates or biscuits and a Christmas card for the funeral arrangers in to your local branches

If you are going away, or not going away, for the Christmas period, call your funeral arrangers and tell them when you will and won't be available. Then call them when you get back!

Print out this newsletter and deliver a copy to each of your funeral arrangers. It's a good excuse to call in and you could take the opportunity to 'review' the year with them and ask if they are happy with the work you do. It may be prudent to edit out the 'Marketing Tips' section and the statistics section before you do so.

Also, don't forget that there is an IoCF Christmas logo (download from the 'Members' area') to use on sticky labels, Christmas cards or other items which you might take to funeral directors.

Good luck and we hope that 2014 will be a really successful year for you.
 

Presentation scripts
Some old script templates still have the subheading 'Name of the deceased' at the top of the first page. Please make sure that this phrase is removed from the presentation script sent to the family after the funeral. (We will be addressing the anomalies between the templates and resources which long-serving members are using and the latest updated versions in the New Year.)

Some script templates have a footer which denotes a CCL copyright. This should also be removed from the presentation script or you could change the copyright holder to your own name if you like the message that this footer implies.
 

Booking forms
Whenever possible we need families to accept their questionnaire electronically. When you ask families to agree to receive a feedback form, please inform them that this will be by email unless they would prefer a paper copy. Please leave the spaces for the family's postal address blank on the booking form sent to Barbara and only insert the email address, unless a paper copy is needed.
 

Training Dates
CCL are delighted to announce that the newly redesigned Child and Baby Funerals and Advanced Tribute courses are now national qualifications in their own right and are on the Ofqual Register at Level 4. For more information on these courses please contact Civil Ceremonies on 0845 0048608.

All IoCF members are entitled to a 10% discount.

12th March 2014 - Child and Baby Funerals

13th March 2014 - Advanced Tribute Writing (to be eligible for this course you must have carried out at least 12 funerals)
 

Conference News

Conference 2014
It is my pleasure to confirm that the dates for our Conference next year will be 31st October, 1st and 2nd November. I did try to book for mid-November but Hillscourt was booked for all other weekends. Invitations will be emailed out to all members around July 2014.

Planning has already begun, but if any of you have any ideas or things you would like to be included please let me know as soon as possible (viv.oneill@btinternet.com). The feedback forms from this year's Conference have already provided some ideas and thank you for returning the forms to Barbara.

Best wishes
Viv O'Neill
 

Database Statistics

Here are the stats for September 2013.

Total number of booking forms logged: 437

 
2014 Diary Dates

 
And Finally ...

Warm wishes from Head Office for a very happy Christmas and New Year. I hope that 2014 is an excellent year for you all.
 

And thank you for reading.
 
Barbara