December 2015

 
Season's Greetings from
The Institute of Civil Funerals Council of Management
 

Welcome to the latest edition of the Institute Update

A very warm welcome to our newest members: John Tully, Mark Gilborson and Penny McCarthy.

It's that time of year again! Yes, I mean when the death rate seems to defy all usual patterns and accelerates dramatically or drops to unbelievable low levels until the Christmas period is over! Likewise, some celebrants find themselves very busy and others, who live, as I do, in rural areas, notice a marked preference for religious funeral services amongst those that are held during Advent.

Christmas is certainly a great opportunity to make renewed contact with our local funeral arrangers. The IoCF Christmas logo has been updated and can be found on the resources page of the members' area on the website to be used on any Christmas stationery you are producing - at the time of writing, companies such as vistaprint.co.uk can still provide personal Christmas cards, labels, calendars, note pads etc, in just a few days.

It may seem rather trite advice to some by now but calling in to your local funeral homes and crematoria with gifts of chocolates, biscuits, pens etc really does keep you at the forefront of funeral arrangers' minds for the coming year.

The Council is already looking beyond Christmas and ahead to 2016 and were very pleased to welcome Kailah Eglington and Rosemary Drewery on to the council at this month's meeting. Their combined expertise and experience in business development, media and PR and bereavement support, not forgetting their enthusiasm and commitment to supporting the Institute, will be wonderful assets for the council.

 
Conference feedback

A good deal of time at the recent Council meeting was devoted to discussing plans for future Conferences and Best Practice Days. As reported in the last update, this year's annual conference was received well by those who attended but with fewer than thirty delegates attending for the full weekend, the event was far from cost effective.

The Council was disappointed that so few members came to Conference and can only conclude that it did not meet the needs of the majority of our members. It will always be the case that 'we cannot please all the people all the time' but both Conference and the Best Practice days are run for the benefit (and enjoyment) of the members and we do want to achieve that as much as possible.

Therefore we'd like you to have your say in how future events are run - from location, to cost, to content. Do you think there should be a smaller investment of energy and money in Conference and more in Best Practice days or vice versa? And to that end we have set up two short surveys - please take a moment to complete the Conference survey (password iocf2016-1) and Best Practice Day survey (password: iocf2016-2).

The surveys will be available until 28th December at 11pm.

 
Facebook

It has become very apparent that use of the forum has declined rapidly and it is no longer the effective communication tool that it was. Whilst we still do not have the resources to manage a social media account accessed by the public, we are now in the process of setting up an IoCF Facebook group which every member will be entitled to join so that they can chat and network with other celebrants and share resources in a more easily accessible and user friendly way. More details of that to follow very soon.

 
Death cafés

One of the considerations at the last Council meeting was raising awareness of the IoCF. At the moment, there is no further opportunity to increase our advertising presence outside the industry, however, as the press and the media slowly begin to chip away at the taboos surrounding death, activities such as death cafés are coming to the fore which celebrants could very easily be part of or indeed run. If any member has first-hand experience of these, we would be keen to hear about it. It would be good to be able to put some resources together to help other members organise such an event.

 
A very happy Christmas to all members and may 2016 be a successful year for everyone associated with the Institute.

Christine Ogden
Chair
 

 
Conference News

Ken West M.B.E.
As mentioned in our November newsletter report on Conference, Ken West delivered a paper 'The emergence of the celebrant'. Ken has now kindly sent us his talk, and you can read it in full here.

His book "RIP Off! Or the British Way of Death" was on sale at Conference and quickly sold out.

The book jacket proclaims:
'Can the British laugh in the face of death and funerals? Do they really want to know what happens when they hand their body over to the men in black? You are a short time alive and a long time dead! Go on, risk it; read this irreverent fictionalised tale of real and astonishing events beginning in 1993. At times, deadly serious; at times, deadly funny. It's the mysterious world of the funeral directors, as they try to kill off burial under trees and oppose DIY funerals. It's a world of embalming, pink glitzy shrouds, crappy coffins, brawling at funerals and girl power. Nobody's resting in peace. It spawns a revolution but twenty years later, who is really in control? Find out; if you dare!'

If you are interested, 'RIP Off!' is available from well-known internet giants or directly from Ken's publisher Troubadour Publishing.

 
Admin News

The office will be closed from 2pm on Wednesday 23rd December reopening 10am Monday 4th January. In case of emergencies please contact Christine Ogden on 01507 313164 or 07748 166236.

 
Correction
In the last update we mentioned that the clergy fees would be £178 from 1st January 2016, as stated in the recently published table of fees from the Church of England office.

The statement that this was an increase in the fees which an incumbent member of the clergy (or their delegate) can charge for leading a funeral service in a crematorium is incorrect. That fee increase happened over a year ago and remains the same for 2016: some other fees have risen but not this one.

Our apologies for any confusion.

 
Logos
In addition to an updated IoCF Christmas logo, on the resources page of the members' area of our website the standard logo is now also available in png format, as requested at the AGM. This means that the logo appears on a transparent ground rather than a white one and so can be uploaded on to coloured backgrounds without appearing in a white box.

 
Funeralmap
Funeralmap Ltd is now under the new ownership of Trvevor Hitchman and we are very pleased to announce that Trevor has honoured the exiting discounts on listings for IoCF members i.e. membership of the IoCF includes a free standard listing on your local area page and the premier listing remains at the cost of £75 plus VAT.

We shall be reviewing our contract with Funeralmap Ltd in the near future, including the provision of a national advert to appear on every page of the site. We would be interested to know the level of interest and work which IoCF members receive through their current listing on the site - an email to Barbara in the office detailing your experience would be appreciated to help inform any future package we take up with them.

In the meantime, if you would like to upgrade to a premier listing, Trevor can be contacted at info@funeralmap.co.uk or on 0330 2230279.

 
Public Liability Insurance
A quick reminder - the public liability insurance provided by the IoCF under your subscription also covers you for all ceremony celebrancy work including baby naming, wedding celebrations etc.

 
Merchandise
Conference attendees had an an early opportunity to purchase some of the new IoCF merchandise including lapel pins and window stickers. These are available from Barbara, priced £2 each for the oval IoCF lapel pin and round rose lapel pin, and £1 for IoCF window stickers.

Stationery
A range of IoCF stationery is available:

Civil Funeral Leaflets, Business Cards, Headed paper and compliment slips, golden rose script overs, zipped writing cases, presentation folders and card presentation sleeves.

Please see the Stationery order form for full details

For additional ceremony products visit www.celebrantsupplies.co.uk - a 'trade only' site for celebrants.
 

 
Diary Dates

 
And Finally ...

There are several members who are on sabbatical from the Institute at the present time as they cope with illness, or that of a family member, the Council would like to send them very best wishes on behalf of everyone.

Congratulations to the following members who have reached another milestone in their work:
Mark Jardine, Mary McDonald, Vikki McKeegan, Jeremy Caddy, John Lewing, Shelagh Mernagh, Faith Oxford, Chris Wynne-Owen, Chris Price, Lynn Kilbane and David Carson.
 

And thank you for reading.
Barbara