September 2016

 
Welcome to the latest edition of the Institute Update
 

A very warm welcome to our newest members:
      Bill Wilde and Eileen Tulley.

Seminar Day and AGM

Hopefully I shall be seeing quite a few of you next weekend at the Seminar Day and AGM at The Beeches in Bournville, Birmingham. There are still places left, so if you are able to come along, please return your booking form to Barbara as soon as possible.

The AGM will be held at the end of the afternoon. Apologies for absence, matters to be raised under AOB or an offer to be elected onto the Council of Management can be sent to the IOCF secretary Janice Thomson at janicethomson47@gmail.com.

 
Council matters

Members of the council are involved in the management and decision making processes of the IoCF. At the AGM, in reviewing the past twelve months, I will be reporting on some quite major changes in how the Institute is run. As reported in the last Update, much of the administration is now being handled, very ably, by Barbara and we are delighted that she has offered to cover the extra hours required to do that for the coming months.

As ever, there are some projects that are on-going, as much as resources of time and finances permit, and some which have had to be deferred, for the same reason. I will expand further on these at the AGM but over the summer the Council have been working on the following:

• Updating and streamlining the administration process, both in the office and for members. It is planned that the booking form and feedback paperwork will be reduced immensely to reflect the current needs of the members, their clients and the Institute. A new, shorter version of the booking form can be found in the resource area, or contact Barbara.
  We shall continue to ensure that for every funeral undertaken by a member, the family will still have an opportunity to give feedback, but questionnaires will not be sent out in every case. The new system will be explained further in the coming weeks.
• The website technology is being updated to ensure that it is tablet and phone responsive and a new, fresher looking and more efficient website is now in the final stages of completion.
• The IoCF Policy for assessment of members has been revised and is available for inspection on the resources page.
• Negotiations for Professional Indemnity insurance to cover all members are ongoing and Council are looking into an offer from SAIF to extend their support services to our members: more details soon.

This is my last newsletter to the members as Chairman and it is pleasing that, as ever, there is much to report about the Institute which reflects not only the hard work undertaken by the Council and Barbara but the progress which is being made to maintain the highly respected reputation of the IoCF of which I am very proud.

I look forward to hearing that others will now take these and other projects forward to ensure that we are still the flagship organisation in the industry.

Best wishes
Christine Ogden

 
Admin
 

UNDERCOVER: Nailing the Fraudsters
'Journalist Paul Connolly exposes the world of fake deaths, obtaining his own bogus death certificate to demonstrate how he could cash in on a lucrative life insurance policy.'

Part of this programme features a 'fake funeral' that IoCF member John Culling was asked to set up and deliver back in February. John says: "I am not sure exactly how much it will show but it was great fun doing it! The researcher for the show found my details on the IoCF website. The 'deceased' in the show is Paul Connolly, the presenter, who commented it felt quite surreal being asked for details to be included at his 'own' funeral."

The programme is to be shown on Channel 5 on Wednesday 28th September at 10pm.

 
FACEBOOK REMINDERS
No apologies for repeating this again: please can you remember to use KEYWORDS as a heading at the beginning of each NEW post.

Another thing to remember, if you are uploading a poem or wording which others may use, make sure you also to upload it to 'files' for safekeeping.

And a final reminder - any posts to the group page should not contain any references from which any person who is not a member of the IoCF could be identified. This is a very important part of the IoCF Facebook T&Cs (pinned to the group page and also in the Facebook Instructions on the members' area resources page).

 
Stationery
 

IoCF Stationery
To order IoCF items, contact Barbara (barbara@iocf.org.uk).

Overprinted leaflets - 12p each
Business cards - a sliding scale dependent upon quantity
Headed Paper (50 sheets) - £6
Compliment Slips (50 slips) - £6
Zipped Writing Case - £20
Presentation Folder - £10

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

 
Diary Dates

 
And finally ...
 

Congratulations to the following members who have reached another milestone in their work, ranging from 50 to 1000 funerals (in no particular order):

Viv O'Neill, Jenny Gibbs, Rick Sayer, Kate Barker, Di Lightowler, Mandy Helsby, Joy Atkinson and Catherine Holtom.

Thanks for reading
Barbara