funeral trends

Camref – the Campaign for Real Funerals

2 July 2012
Charles
7 Comments
Categories: Dignity, family funeral directors, funeral cost, funeral directors, funeral trends, independent funeral directors

The departing board chairman of Golden Charter funeral plans offers this cold sweat-inducing warning to independent funeral directors in a valedictory address in the Golden Charter newsletter, Goldenews, which we are grateful to have had forwarded to us. He says:

Co-op and Dignity have both acquired significant additional scale, and unquestionably they are operating with a better financial model than independents – on their own – can hope to achieve. There will be no softening of their ambition and there will be greater local commercial pressure. We can also expect consolidation to come from other quarters, particularly private equity.

Not only are these two corporations and private equity seeking to dominate the funerals market, they are making substantial in-roads into the crematoria market. The strategy is to provide future control of and access to crematoria which will potentially form a risk to independents and the prices that they will have to pay.

Corporations like to deal with corporations, and Co-op and Dignity present like-minded opportunity to the insurance companies. In 2007, an over 50’s plan was merely a means of building a financial provision for a funeral – the question of service provision did not come into it.

However, the insurance companies now manage 60 per cent of funds subsequently to be used to pay for a funeral, and it is a reality that they exert considerable influence over who carries out a funeral.

The funeral industry is one of the last bastions for independents. Almost every other market sector has fallen to national or international consolidation. Over the next five years, the choice for an independent funeral director is simple: sell to the competition or come together and exploit your collective strength.

This remains a chilling analysis even after you factor in the chairman’s sales pitch: ‘Over the next five years, the choice for an independent funeral director is simple: sell to the competition or come together and exploit your collective strength. Golden Charter is the only credible collective umbrella.’

Consolidation, done well, benefits consumers and shareholders. The present corporate players will fail to grow their market share if they don’t address pricing, service and positive brand identity, and they don’t look as if they’re going to hack it. But there are unquestionably opportunities for the right player with a brand that dares to speak its name. As we like to say, if John Lewis did funerals…

The days of the independents just have to be numbered, don’t they? Come on, look at your high street and go figure. 

Or do they? 

Consider the work of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA). Among its many successes it lists these: 

  • Created a rich and varied choice of real ale – In the 1970’s CAMRA successfully fought the efforts of the big brewers to replace traditional ales with tasteless keg beers. Since seeing off the likes of Watneys Red, Tavern Keg and Double Diamond the campaigning efforts of CAMRA has seen the creation of hundreds of new breweries producing a wonderful array of real ales. 
  • Smashed the Big brewers stranglehold on UK pubs – In the 1970s and 1980s the Big Six brewers, Allied, Bass, Courage, Scottish & Newcastle, Watneys and Whitbread monopolised regions of the country. CAMRA lobbied against this lack of choice in Britain’s pubs and gradually eroded these regional monopolies. 
  • Number of Breweries increased Fourfold – Since CAMRA was founded the number of breweries operating in the UK has grown fourfold to over 840 breweries. Without CAMRA’s presence it is doubtful whether real ale would be as widespread as it is today. 

 

CAMRA is not an industry body, it is an alliance of consumers: CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale is an independent, voluntary organisation campaigning for real ale, community pubs and consumer rights.
 
Much the same as the Good Funeral Guide. And the Natural Death Centre. 
 
The funeral industry is unaccustomed to consumer scrutiny, doesn’t much like it and tends either to keep schtum or react with angry insecurity when challenged and questioned. This is in stark contrast to all those bereaved people who phone and email to thank us for being there for them. 

 

We believe that independent funeral directors, if they are to survive as a collection of characterful and excellent businesses offering richness of choice,  would do well to reflect that their survival, by no means assured, is likely, if it happens, to owe a debt, perhaps a very great debt, to consumer-focussed communities like the GFG and the Natural Death Centre. To them we say: join in the debate. We learn from each other. We want the same thing. Let’s find common ground. 

 

CAMRA website here.
 
Sorry, no link to the Golden Charter newsletter available. 

 

Death kills?

31 May 2012
Charles
9 Comments
Categories: Embalming, funeral trends, green funeral, Hearses

Posted by Richard Rawlinson

Back in the day, it was a given of the natural order that the decomposition of our remains made us part of the food chain. In the last few decades, the negative environmental impact of burial and cremation has become an ethical issue. Although there’s increasing scepticism towards scientific claims about man-made global warming, one can still want to reduce air, soil and water pollution, with its adverse affects on our health and that of wildlife. 

Embalming chemicals; hardwood coffins; concrete vaults; quarried headstones; marble mausoleums; processional motorcades; non-organic flowers and refreshments: all on the bad list. 

Cardboard coffins and biodegradable urns; planting a tree to mark a resting place; new crematoria chimneys that reduce emissions; removal of mercury-amalgam fillings before cremation; car-sharing and locally-sourced refreshments: all on the good list. 

While dictating the menu of the buffet and the material of headstones might seem too finger-wagging, there’s a case for reducing toxins by replacing embalming formaldehyde with glutaraldehyde, which is less poisonous, and designing ‘clean’ smokestacks. 

That’s the beauty of technological evolution. Sophisticated Man’s primal survival instinct remains intact, He devises solutions to problems that arise. People argue over the best course of action, or the urgency of action, but the doomsayers are invariably silenced. 

Nuclear fuel and GM food polarise opinion when proposed as the sustainable answer to the world’s needs. Some see wind farms as an answer while others see them as useless energy generators that guzzle fossil fuel in their construction, slice up birds and damage tourism as eco-eyesores. 

In his new book, Watermelons (so-titled because they’re green on the outside and red on the inside), James Delingpole discusses the Climategate scandal in which tax payer-funded scientists manipulated research in the most unscientific ways to make man-made warming claims stand up. Their lies, cover-ups, distortions and exaggerations, claims Delingpole, have caused mass hysteria resulting in liberties curtailed and trillions of pounds squandered. 

What’s your take on the green movement’s influence on the funeral industry? Necessary initiatives welcomed by today’s consumers? Or overdone and greeted with apathy or scepticism?    

Care more

8 May 2012
Charles
4 Comments
Categories: funeral trends, Good books, MEMO

Posted by Vale

Seth Godin has been called ‘America’s greatest marketer’. Well they go in for superlatives don’t they? But his blog – Seth’s Blog – is full of interesting ideas and reflections about the way that businesses operate.

He recently blogged about caring more and what it might mean for a business:

Politicians are held in astonishingly low esteem. Congress in particular is setting record lows, but it’s an endemic problem. The reason? They consistently act as if they don’t care. They don’t care about their peers, certainly, and by their actions, apparently, they don’t care about us. Money first.

Many salespeople face a similar problem–perhaps because for years they’ve used a shallow version of caring as a marketing technique to boost their commissions. One report by the National Association of Realtors found that more than 90% of all homeowners are never again contacted by their real estate agent after the contracts for the home are signed. Why bother… there’s no money in it, just the possibility of complaints. Well, the reason is obvious–you’d come by with cookies and intros to the neighbors if you cared.

Economists tell us that the reason to care is that it increases customer retention, profitability and brand value. For me, though, that’s beside the point (and even counter to the real goal). Caring gives you a compass, a direction to head and most of all, a reason to do the work you do in the first place.

Care More.

Spot on! If we are looking for a sense of direction as the funeral world changes around us, thinking about how we can care more seems to me to be a really good place to start.

You can find the whole piece here.

You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows

7 May 2012
Charles
11 Comments
Categories: ashes, funeral trends

Some advice today for aspirant funeral directors from the award-winning marketing team here at the GFG-Batesville Tower. If you want to set up as a funeral director, don’t go down the cul de sac of trad undertaking. 1) There are already too many undertakers competing for too few dead people. 2) The future’s not that way in any case.

The future is ashes. Blue-skies send-offs with ashes. No hush-and-awe, no big black cars, no men in black macs manhandling a bulky box. Families will increasingly arrange their own send-offs. They’ll do it their way. 

Shortly, we shall introduce you to a brand new business which is going to do exactly that. 

There is no simple explanation for the death of the funeral, but an important factor has been the failure of funeral directors, acting together, to improve the experiential value of funerals. Emblematic of this has been their complete failure to campaign against production-line crem funerals complete with fines for families who go a bit over. 

For a glimpse of the not-too-distant funeral, let’s have a look at the obits in the Times Colonist in British Columbia, Canada. Not a selection, all of them. Date: 4 May 2012.

DOBELL, Richard Ravenscroft Richard Ravenscroft … A memorial will be held on Salt Spring Island at a later date. 

TURPEL, Harry Gilbert … No service by Harry’s request.

BISHOP, Paul A … At Paul’s request there will be no memorial or celebration and flowers are respectfully declined.

BROWN, William Anderson … A memorial service celebrating Bill’s life will be held on Saturday, May 5th, 2012, at 1:00 pm, at St. John the Baptist Heritage Church.

CHALMERS, Jesse … A memorial service will be held on Wednesday, May 9, 2012 at 2:00pm at First Memorial Funeral Chapel.

DALZIEL, Bill … A memorial service for Bill will be held at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, 1701 Elgin Rd, Victoria, B.C. on Saturday June 16 at 2pm, with a reception to follow.

DIXON, Cinamon Anne … There will a blessing of ashes on Saturday May 5, 2012 at 2pm at St Barnabas Anglican Church.

DUNCAN, Thora Arline … Thora’s remains will be interred at the family plot at Royal Oak Burial Park. At Thora’s request, there will be no service.

FLATMAN, Gertrude Emily… A Funeral Service will be held on Saturday, June 2, 2012 at 1:00 p.m. at St. Mary’s the Virgin Anglican Church.

WAINWRIGHT, Michael Raymond John … Michael’s requiem will be held at St. Peter and St. Paul (1379 Esquimalt Rd.) on Friday, May 4th at 1:30 pm.

FRASER, Jeanne Anne … A service honouring Jeanne was held at Scarboro United Church (134 Scarboro Avenue S.W., Calgary, AB) on Thursday, May 3, 2012 at 11:00 a.m. with a reception to follow. Jeanne will also be honoured at an afternoon tea at the Pipestone Community Hall in Manitoba on Thursday, May 10th at 2:00 p.m.

WILSON, Sylvia Louise … Condolences may be offered to the family at www.mccallbros.com Dad and all the Angels in Heaven are rejoicing your arrival Mom!

MACDOWELL, Joan Mary … Please join the family in Joan’s Garden for tea on Saturday, May 12 at 1 pm to celebrate and share memories of her wonderful life.

MARUCA, Joseph Antonio … An informal celebration of his life will occur on Saturday, May 19th at the home of his son Frank

OAKMAN, Margaret … Friends and family are invited to attend a celebration of life May 12th, 2012

RAUDSEPP, Veronica … Veronica was a private person who took great pleasure in plants and gardens, and in her later years created beautiful pressed flower cards that were shared with friends on various occasions. Veronica and Walter are together again.

RICHARDS, Susan Iris Neva … A gathering to remember Susan will be announced in the near future.

RICHARDSON, Jon Reginald … Family and friends are invited to attend a Celebration of Life to be held at the Canadian Forces Sailing Association located at 1001 Maple Bank Road on June 2nd, 2012

WINTEMUTE, John (Jack) Roberts … There will be a private family service at a later date.

 

Creating ambience

13 December 2011
Charles
4 Comments
Categories: funeral customs, funeral trends

Regular blog reader Melissa Stewart has been getting into the spirit of Christmas by burning incense made by the Cistercian monks of Prinknash Abbey in Gloucestershire. “I like the waft when I’m singing carols,” she says.

She writes to suggest that incense would work well for some funerals. It all depends on the venue, of course — you couldn’t do it at the crem. But she’s absolutely right in suggesting that, as all good religions know, a good funeral should appeal to all the senses. Secularists, take notice. 

You can order best-quality incense online from Prinknash (pronounced ‘Prinnash’) Abbey and pay for it through PayPal. It comes in a range of scents, some of which, as you might have supposed, are created from secret recipes. 

Find the Prinknash Abbey website here. 

Priests and secular celebrants

12 December 2011
Charles
8 Comments
Categories: Atheism, celebrants, funeral reformers, funeral trends, funerals in other cultures, Humanists, Religious funerals

By Richard Rawlinson

Today’s elderly, even when not religious, are more likely to choose a funeral conducted by a priest (pastor/vicar depending on denomination) than a secular celebrant. Given the choice between a person in a robe or business suit, they opt for the former. Their decision seems as natural to them as taking the dog to the vet rather than the local homoeopath on yell.com, even if they were aware of the alternative choice.

This generational conventionalism is set to be eroded in the years to come as today’s middle aged – more strident in their secularism – plan their send-offs. Instead of feeling comforted by the involvement of those in holy orders, many see the religiosity of the ensuing services as more hindrance than help: they don’t feel the need for prayers for their immortal souls; the division of limelight between God and the deceased might bore their attendant family and friends; and, worse still, some priests seem to jump at the opportunity to proselytise to this captive audience of non-churchgoers. Rarely successfully.  

So the swords are crossed. Teams huddle to plan strategy. Neither opponent is in it for financial reward, although they’d both welcome a steadier stream of cheques from those who choose their service. At the moment, the priests have the virtual monopoly (about 465,000 of the 500,000 who die in the UK each year, according to the National Association of Funeral Directors). But for how long?

The motives on both sides are honourable by and large. They want to give the deceased and bereaved the funeral they deserve: smooth-running, comforting, memorable, moving, inspiring, beautiful, profound. If any professional pride comes into play, it’s because they’re aware of the inherent communication skills, charisma and hard graft required to pull off such a feat.

The clergy assess their situation. It’s important to remind ourselves here that priests come in all forms from the extremes of progressive and conservative to varying shades in the middle. To complicate human nature further, all types can seem loving, intelligent and charismatic to some, and annoying to others. A darling of liberals might seem muddled to the traditionalist. Muscular orthodoxy might seem intrusive and domineering to those who prefer TV’s amiable Rev. What’s more, whether woolly or forthright, both camps can be either good or bad communicators: some people literally exude star quality, others lead us to assume they must have had their heads shoved down the lavatory at school.

When addressing the slow but steady loss to civil celebrants of funerals within their parish community, it’s inevitable there’s disagreement among these men (and women) in holy orders about the best ways to keep death ritual in the religious sphere.

They may comfort themselves that funeral directors still tend to put most ‘business’ their way (more blogs on why this is, please). Clergy might also feel at an advantage as they don’t just deal professionally in death like some in the funeral industry: they’re the shepherds of living parishioners, who they see at church and during school and hospital visits; who they baptise, confirm, marry and counsel in times of need. Their churches are not linked only to dying and visited under duress like the crematoria.

But they’d be unwise to be complacent about the growing demand for good where to buy tadalafil uk secular celebrants. Like the clergy, these celebrants come in various shapes and sizes. Some appeal to the more forthright atheist, others – believing in bespoke service – more readily tailor their service to audiences made of different faiths and none, perhaps going along with requests for prayers, hymns, and so forth.    

This in some ways places them head to head with the more liberal members of the clergy, those who are keen to adapt to mixed congregations, both atheist-lites and those simply without strong religious convictions. In ‘market’ terms, this is rich picking. Of the four in 10 Brits who claim membership of the Church of England, it’s clear many are secularists, who increasingly see hypocrisy in using their church simply for baptisms, weddings, funerals and the Christmas carol service. The NAFD has confirmed that most of those choosing non-religious funerals were ‘hatch, match, dispatch’ Protestants, whereas lapsed Catholics remain more likely to uphold the ceremonial traditions of their forefathers, hedging their bets, so to speak.

This leads to consideration of various ongoing debates here at GFG: the discussion about secular ritual, whether religion-inspired or not; the shared, non-denominational nature of crematoria, and the call for faith groups to adjust to mixed funeral audiences.

The latter discussion point, in particular, depends on personal taste. I’d happily pay respects at a secular or multi-faith funeral at a crematorium, but I’d choose for myself a requiem mass in a Catholic church followed by a graveside committal on consecrated ground. I’d want less emphasis on eulogy in the homily, and more on praying for my immortal soul in Purgatory. Loved ones can celebrate my life before and after the mass, if they so wish, but I’d hope, whether they’re secular or from a different faith group, they’d accept my wish to keep the sacred mass centred on (my) God.

It should not be a ‘duty’ to homogenise all funerals to make them inclusive of all. When the culture is strong, it trumps good manners. When the culture is not a heartfelt issue, then general consensus can take over. There’s a difference between multicultural society and pluralist society. In society, cultures do not all mix as one homogenous whole but they should be able to coexist peacefully with their different cultures respected by others.

A multifaith funeral may indeed be a good thing, perhaps for the majority today. But, for the minority of resolute religious or indeed militant atheists, there will always be some things too important to compromise.

This has been the case with decades of ecumenical conferences held by different Christian denominations striving unrealistically for unity on key issues. Ecumenism more often than not means disparate groups getting together to proselytise their own cause. I’d rather a smaller Church that’s not diluted than a bigger Church that’s lost its meaning. 

Ed’s note: If this has got you thinking, you may be interested in a Muslim view of traditional religious funeral culture vs the way we are today. Here’s a taster: “For the first time in my life, I really needed religion to give me solace, but here I was, listening to an unfamiliar language where the word “devil” kept popping up, alarming rather than comforting me.” Full article in the Guardian here. 

The case for a secular funeral ritual

1 December 2011
Charles
24 Comments
Categories: celebrants, ceremony, Formality vs informality, funeral customs, funeral directors, funeral trends, Religious funerals

Though secular people are increasingly saying no to a religious funeral, we note that it’s taking them forever to do it. Why so?

Because, though they reject the theology, they like the ritual. Ritual is the antidote to chaos. It brings order. Everyone knows what to do. When death turns our life upside down, convention conquers confusion.

Which is why the Victorian funeral procession is still with us, too, albeit vestigially. Our modern grieving style does not go in for the same vulgar ostentation, and modern traffic has made stately procession mostly impossible, but we can still travel the first and the last twenty yards in reasonably good order just about, and people cling to that because, dammit, the way to do it is the way it’s always been done.

Once the undertaker and his or her bearers have bowed deeply and departed, that’s where, at a secular funeral, familiarity flies out of the window. Up steps the celebrant and no one knows what the heck to expect. And though the verdict of the audience afterwards may be that they liked the negative quality of the ceremony – it gave the dead person, not god, star billing – I think they often go home nursing a secret disappointment, a sense of something missing. 

They miss the familiar script. Because they feel a funeral should be a custom.

Which is why they like the traditional dressing-up, the undertaker, clad in the garb of a Victorian gentleperson, handing over to someone dressed in medieval vestments. Secular civvies just don’t cut it – too dowdy, too individuated.

People miss the heightened, numinous language.

They miss the non-verbal elements of a proper ceremony: symbolism, movement, the elements that make for a sense of occasion, a sense of theatre, the transfiguration of the ordinary.

Because at a time like this they need ritual.

Secular celebrants take upon themselves an intolerable burden. It takes disparate qualities to be a good celebrant: intelligence, empathy, writing skills, inexhaustible powers of origination, a feel for theatre and the ability to hold an audience. It’s too hard. In a secular ceremony the celebrant is often a solo performer. That’s not the case in a ritual. In a ritual, the celebrant is an actor uttering familiar words, and is merely pre-eminent in an ensemble performance which involves all present. In a ritual, the celebrant may not be an awfully good actor – but Hamlet is still Hamlet. Here’s the point: in a ritual, a superb celebrant is a bonus, not the be all and end all.

Unique funerals for unique people. It’s a lovely idea. But come on, no one to whom death has happened actually wants a celebrant sitting on their sofa, sipping tea, saying brightly, ‘You can do what you like – we start with a blank piece of paper!’ When your brain is in bits that’s one of the most unhelpful things anyone could say to you.

Can a celebrant really reinvent the wheel every time he or she creates a ceremony? Of course not. Unique funerals for unique people is a pipedream, and the time has come to declare the experiment a partial success but an overall failure because it meant chucking out the baby with the bathwater.

Which is why secularists need now to move on and devise their own liturgy – or, if you prefer, something generic, formulaic, recycled, polished and proud of it, because that’s what a liturgy is.

Is it really possible to achieve a good funeral without improvising every time someone dies? Can a secular liturgy be both personal and universal? Can it be prescriptive and adaptable?

Why not? Religious ceremonies do it all the time. And the eulogy will always be the centrepiece.

A good secular ritual will be well-plotted, of course, and like all good rituals it will be a purposeful, meaningful journey.

It will visit places along the way which participants may find difficult, but which they will be glad they did. This is the nature of ritual: in order to be therapeutic it must sometimes be medicinal.

It will unashamedly plagiarise other rituals.

It will be created by a team of sorts in the spirit of the creators of the King James Bible:

Neither did we disdain to revise that which we had done, and to bring back to the anvil that which we had hammered: but having and using as great helps as were needful, and fearing no reproach for slowness, nor coveting praise for expedition, we have at the length, through the good hand of the Lord upon us, brought the work to that pass that you see.

It will happen. Some people want to create their own funerals from scratch; most don’t. 

Signs of the times – undertakers as event managers

17 November 2011
Charles
No comments
Categories: funeral customs, funeral directors, funeral trends, funerals in other cultures

Funerary customs are on the move in Germany, which seems to be emerging as the country to watch at the moment.

Undertakers are becoming a little like event managers. People who are not religious and don’t go to church expect undertakers to organize a ritual for the funeral.

In recent years the culture of mourning has changed in Germany. Funerals have become more personal, often more colourful.

‘As private business people, funeral directors are usually better able to cater for individual needs. A priest, on the other hand, is confined to certain structures,’ says Alexander Helbach, spokesman for the consumer funeral watchdog association in Germany. Helbach believes morticians are profiting from the change in attitudes by extending their services into organizing funeral orators or funeral halls for families of the dead.

As German undertakers move to meet consumer expectations by extending their service into ceremony-making, we note that most British undertakers have been very slow to exploit the opportunity.

Following recent discussion on this blog about who is responsible if a grave is dug too small, it is delightful to note that Germans, noted for thoroughness in all things, train their undertakers to cope with all contingencies:

In the central German town of Munnerstadt there is even a special graveyard where young morticians can practice burials – the only one of its kind in Europe. 

Read the whole article here. 

All things to all people?

15 November 2011
Charles
No comments
Categories: alternative funerals, ceremony, funeral reformers, funeral trends, Religious funerals

Posted by Richard Rawlinson

For better or worse, depending on your viewpoint, you know where you stand with both civil and Catholic funerals – give or take a few 1,000 variations on a theme. However, I’m not sure what to make of this organisation, and would be interested to hear your take on it. For me, the OneSpirit Interfaith Foundation seems to be forging a niche for itself that sits firmly on the fence between civil and religious, claiming to design funeral ceremonies where everyone attending, regardless of faith or views, will feel included.

Acknowledging that a funeral today often includes people attending from different faiths or none, the foundation supplies male and female ministers who have followed a two-year training programme with the Interfaith Seminary. It claims this training allows for the recognition of ‘the inner spiritual truths of the individual [which are also] at the heart of the world’s great faith traditions’. It adds: ‘There are countless paths leading to the One God / Truth / Great Spirit / Source-of-All’.

This is clearly not just another Protestant sect as it’s aiming to be as inclusive of agnostics and non-Christians as it is those uncomfortable with the organised Church. In fact, the reference to ‘God’ above is the only one I could find on its website.

Of its ministry, it says: ‘We aim to be of service to people of all faiths or none’, citing as an example ‘those who are seeking spiritual connection and expression, yet feel uncomfortable with conventional religion’.

It continues: ‘We are not creating a new religion, but filling a growing spiritual gap in modern society. It’s not our aim to convert anyone away from their faith, but to support people who wish to enquire more deeply into their own spiritual tradition and their own soul’.

Whether agnostic or religious, might this approach be comforting to some in the context of funerals?

I have my own views, but I’d be interested to hear thoughts from the civil funeral perspective.