Good Funeral Awards

The Good Funeral Awards judges have sifted through hundreds of nominations for this year’s great event and have issued the following longlist. Every category is strong. Winners will be announced at the glittering, gala Good Funeral Awards dinner at Bournville, Birmingham, on 6 September 2014.

Who are the judges? We couldn’t possibly say. As with the Oscars and the Baftas, the identities of the judges are hidden in order to protect them from influence, on the one hand, and retribution, on the other. The process is as safe and fair and objective as possible.

Have you booked for either this event or for the Ideal Death Show, 5-7 September? Have a look at the Ideal Death Show website here and see what you’ll miss if you don’t book now. As ever, this is a great gathering of the most interesting people in the funerals biz. This year there will be lots of members of the public there, too.

Good Funeral Awards 2014 — the longlist

Funeral Director of the Year

Daniel and  Sarah Wolsey – Daniel Ross Funerals, West Midlands

Mark Catchpole – Harrison Funeral Home, Essex

Sarah Clarke – Arka Original Funerals, Sussex

Julian Hussey – AG Down, Dorset and Devon

Chris Parker – Abbey Funeral Services, Kent

Poppy Mardall – Poppy’s Funerals, London

David Parslow – Walter C Parson, Devon

Jill Huelin – Co-operative Funeralcare, West Yorkshire

Colin Fisher – Colin Fisher Funerals, Kent

Lucy Jane – Individual Funeral Company, Oxfordshire

Embalmer of the Year

Liz Davis – Freelance

Helen Bozon – Richard Ward Funeral Services, Leicestershire

Bob Dyer – Midlands Embalming Services

Cara Wisznieski – Fred Hamer Funeral Services, Lancashire

Most Promising New Funeral Director of the Year sponsored by the Church of England

Claire Turnham – Only With Love, Oxfordshire

Evelyn Temple – Evelyn’s Funerals, Berkshire

Louris Hilton – Hilton’s Funeral Directors, Shropshire

Lesley Wallace and Sarah Stuart – Wallace Stuart Funeral Directors, Somerset

Funeral Arranger of the Year

Angela Bailey – Harrison Funeral Home, Essex

Donna Adams – AR Adams, Essex

Emma Fisher – Colin Fisher Funerals, Kent

Rebecca Diamond – AW Lymn, Nottinghamshire

Celebrant of the Year

Belinda Forbes

Wendy Weavin

Katie Deverell

Dee Ryding

Jane Morgan

Terri Shanks

Steve Emmett

Rebecca Williams Dinsdale

Lynne Watson

Lyn Banham

Lesley Arnold Hopkins

Lifetime Achievement Award

David Meek – AW Lymn, Nottinghamshire

Eric de Chalon – Bungard, Sussex

Chris Parker – Abbey Funerals, Kent

Major Contribution to the Understanding of Death

Barbara Chalmers – Final Fling

Jon Underwood – Death Café

Chantal Lockey

Best Alternative Hearse

Volkswagen Funerals

Trike Funerals

Morris Minor Hearse Company

Land Rover 4 * 4 Funerals

Cemetery of the Year

Usk

Groby Garden of Remembrance

Kemnal Park

Welwyn Hatfield Lawn Cemetery

Clandon Wood

Florist of the Year

Cassandra Thompson – Stems

UK Flower Lounge – Didsbury, Yorks

Melanie Edwards – Flowers by Mel

Green Funeral Director of the Year sponsored by GreenAcres

Tracy O’Leary – Woodland Wishes

Respect – Margaret Rose

Tomalins, Henley

Crematorium Attendant

Peter Rodwell – Seven Hills

Paul James – Easthampstead Park

Gravedigger of the Year

Jonny Yaxley & Will Macdonald – Henley NBG

Ken McGarrigle & Steve Riddell – Dunstable Cemetery

Michael and Mark Symonds – Karen Hussey

Coffin Supplier of the Year

Sara Elliot – Terra Pura

Roger Fowle

ComparetheCoffin.com

Wealden Coffins

Honest Coffins

Best Bereavement Resource

Much Loved

Dead Social

FuneralChoices.co.uk

What to do if someone dies

We’re the last people to gloat over the mortal remains of the Funeral Business Innovation Show, slated to happen at Olympia in November this year. The organisers recently wrote to those who signed up to it:

The event was designed to benefit the funeral industry in a big way, at this stage it appears to be creating strong divides within it (despite our strong will to work with everybody we can to make this happen). We are not in the business of creating wars, we are in the business of benefiting British funeral directors. At this moment in time we are unable to serve the industry with the high standards we set for our events and have no choice but to postpone.

They’ll be astounded it hit the rocks. We could have told them. Actually, the record shows that we did tell them. Do your homework. Funeralword is another country: they do things differently there. Learn the language, get your head around the customs. They hate interlopers; they’ll circle the wagons and fight you off.

Which is what they did. Moral: what’s good for all businesses ain’t necessarily good for the funerals business. Generic solutions don’t apply. Remember what happened to Alex Polizzi? Nice woman, well meaning. The GFG offered a lot of consultancy to the researchers of that project. In the end we made our excuses and stormed out. When last seen, David was doing nicely, thank you.

As I say, we’re not gloating here at the GFG. Lots will be. Because we sometimes get it bang wrong too. Our stunningest misjudgement to date was to pronounce Death Cafe, at the concept phase, a definite non-runner. So what do we know? Ans: that failure is a great instructor. Keep trying.

Success, when it comes, often comes surprisingly easily. It happened like that for the event we got behind at its birth, the Ideal Death Show and Good Funeral Awards. It just goes on getting bigger, better and, here’s the point, ever more valuable to thinking people in the funerals business. No motivational speakers, no BBC Dragons, no gurus, no hotshots, no biwigs, no marketing whizkids — just good, thinking people coming together in a spirit of fellowship to swap thoughts and ideas and stuff that works (what used to be called best practice).

No one owns the event. It belongs to everyone who comes. So: come!

The Good Funeral Awards move this year to Bournville, Birmingham. The date: 6 September 2014. Nominations are open.

In just three years our little acorn has grown into a flourishing oak. To many funeral directors the Good Funeral Awards might once have looked like an impertinence. Who on earth were we, a bunch of industry outsiders, to stage a glitzy, fun-filled dinner and ask a celeb to bestow ‘Oscars’ on outstanding people? Come off it, what did we know?

The answer is: quite a lot, actually. We’re not self-appointed experts but we are, at the very least, knowledgeable observers of what goes on. Our judges, whose identities we do not reveal, have picked winners that have met with approval.

It’s the glitz that gets us noticed

And the glitz is important. It’s the glitz that gets us noticed. We want the event to be eyecatching –we want the media to sit up and take notice.

Because our underlying purpose is very serious.

We are passionate about raising public awareness of issues around dying, death and funerals. This event helps dissolve some of the taboo around death. It gets people talking and thinking. When they realise that some of the nicest people in Britain work in the funerals business it helps make death feel so much more normal and the task of organising a funeral so much less of an ordeal.

It has always been our primary purpose to put bereaved people in touch with the best providers of services and merchandise. This event serves that purpose admirably. And it does something else. It rewards unsung heroes who work so hard for the bereaved and whose role can so easily be overlooked.

It’s where we get to say thank you

So it makes us fiercely proud that when gravedigger Bernard Underdown, winner in 2012, went to church as usual the following Sunday, his vicar began the service with a little speech about his achievement. When he finished, Bernard was treated to a standing ovation by the congregation. We’re proud that, in 2013, gravedigger Stuart Goodacre’s radio interview got top billing on BBC Radio 4’s Pick of the Week.

Above all, this event gives us the opportunity for us to say to people in the funerals business, on behalf of all bereaved people: ‘Thank you for being there for us at the time when we shall need you.’

There is value in the Good Funeral Awards being staged by outsiders, friends of the consumer. It’s what gives the Good Funeral Awards their essential credibility. Who else could do this? If the industry were to confer ‘Oscars’ on itself, it would look self-congratulatory and no one would pay any attention.

Priceless publicity

And just look at all the great publicity the event gains for the industry. A 1-hour, prime-time documentary by Sky. Loads of local and national radio. Acres of column inches in local and national newspapers. Can you think of any other event that makes the funeral industry look so good to the public? Especially the independent sector? We have already booked in our first camera crew for this year’s event.

If there’s someone you’d like to nominate, do that now on the Good Funeral Awards website. And remember, this isn’t a winner-takes-all event. There are certificates for all who are shortlisted, too, and local media is always interested in them as well. This year’s winner’s Oscar is a beautiful statuette of the Egyptian god of embalming (below).

Nominate someone now!

Go to the Good Funeral Awards website and NOMINATE SOMEONE NOW!

From the Birmingham Post 25 May 2014:

They’re the Oscars you definitely would be seen dead at – and there’s guaranteed to be stiff opposition for a gong.

The inaugural Ideal Death Show, a top of the plots for the funeral industry, promises to be a celebration in Birmingham of everything that’s good about slipping this mortal coil.

Funeral directors across the nation are bidding for a rest-in-piece of the action.

Highlight of the three-day event will be the Good Funeral Awards, a prize-giving ceremony for undertakers who undertake to solemnly walk the extra mile.

Categories at the glittering Bournville gathering include embalmer of the year, The Eternal Slumber Award for top coffin supplier, crematoriuim attendant of the year and best gravedigger.

Winners will receive not Oscars but similarly sized gold statuettes of the Ancient Egyptian god of embalming, Anubis.

Refreshments at the Beeches Hotel pall of fame, staged from September 5 to 7, will be served in Death Cafés where, presumably, chicken in the casket may well be on the menu.

Lectures from luminaries such as Times columnist Ann Treneman and Oldie magazine’s Virginia Ironside will cover subjects like ‘What It Feels Like To Die’.

Pretty final, presumably.

Charles Cowling, author of coffee table book The Good Funeral Guide, stressed that there is nothing mawkish or even macabre about the celebration of everything associated with meeting your maker.

“They’re not weird, these great funeral people,” he said. “They’re wonderful.”

In fact, they’ve been known to really let RIP.

“Above all,” said Charles, “they’re amazingly normal, just like us – kind, decent, friends in need. The world needs to know this.

“They richly deserve to have their praises sung and their stories told. This event is where we get to do that.”

The show will also feature an exhibition of “unconventional funeral merchandise” – ideal for those wanting a fridge magnet for that urn on the mantlepiece.

“The British tend to be a bit coy about their own mortality, but we’re here to provide a space for the curious,” said an event spokesman.

“Many feel uncomfortable about the idea, but our weekends have more laughs than tears.

“There will also be death cafés, opportunities to discuss the Grim Reaper over tea and cake.”

Bournville – home of Cadbury chocolate – was chosen because of its Quaker links.

“They had a reputation for progressive management and embracing ideas ahead of their time,” said the show aide. “We particularly like the way they put emphasis on making this world better rather than pondering what happens after leaving it.

“We respect the Quaker commitments to social justice, environmental consciousness and community.”

All eyes will be on the industry’s ‘Oscars’.

The Good Funeral Awards have moved. Up, of course, several notches, as the prestige of this event grows. And upcountry, too, to Bournville.

Bournville is a suburb of Birmingham. It’s where they make the chocs. It’s in the middle of England, easily accessible by road, rail or canal to funeralists of a northerly or anywherelsely disposition. Looking forward to seeing you, Lol.

Bournville — unlike Bournemouth — is in exactly the right place to attract the public. We want people to come along and hang out with funeral people, meet handpicked suppliers and practitioners and enjoy some interesting talks. This’ll be on the Saturday. We’re calling it the Ideal Death Show, website under construction.

The Good Funeral Awards will be held on the Saturday evening. Nominations open in April.

As ever, we want the event to be progressive, intelligent, diverse, open-minded, edgy and warmly welcoming. Above all we want it to be useful. So this year we’re running parallel activities. We’ve got talks and demos for the public running alongside talks and workshops for undertakers and celebrants. For those who don’t fancy the Awards this year there’ll be a fleet of minibuses taking off for a curry house. There will be entertainment at the Friday evening barbie and something on the Sunday morning before you go home after lunch.

This weekend attracts the brightest and best people in Funeralworld. It’s a great clan gathering where you can meet new people, see old friends, debate issues and share experiences. It’s the year’s big highlight. 

It is also collaborative and co-operative. We welcome all bright ideas and initiatives. Contact us with your ideas, please. This show belongs to everybody.

We try to keep it as cheap as possible, this year cheaper than ever. The venue, the Beeches, has perfectly habitable rooms at budget prices. We hope to keep admission as close as possible to free.

This event has generated an immense amount of good publicity for the funeral business. Here’s just some of the press coverage of last year’s event:

Clarissa Tan wrote a personal opinion of the weekend: The ideal death show

Embalmer of the Year, Liz Davis, relaxes by stuffing mice

Lifetime Achievement Award for Bristol funeral director

Eco-friendly hearse earns Golders-Green based Levertons and Sons recognition at the Good Funeral Awards

Minehead woman wins Embalmer of the Year Award

Calne artist thinks outside the box for final gift

Henley Woodland Burial Ground wins Award

Horncastle’s Stuart digs his way to the top for national award

Radio interview with gravedigger of the Year 2013

Clandon Wood Surrey Hills Natural Burial Reserve Nominated For Cemetery Of The Year Award

Perth funerals specialist claims top honour

National Awards Honour for Trio from Family Funeral Business

Stuart Goodacre, Gravedigger of the Year 2013, appeared on R4’s Pick of the Week. He is the third winner of a Good Funeral Award to be interviewed on Britain’s premier spoken word wireless station. This isn’t silly-stuff publicity, it’s serious publicity. 

Start listening at 26.44.  Hear the full interview on Radio Lincolnshire here. 

A good many people in Horncastle nominated Stuart. Here’s a taste of the sorts of things they said about him: 

* Stuart is a caring young man who treats all his ‘clients’ as though they are close family members.  He digs the grave by hand and cares for them afterwards as he would wish to find them he he was their son, brother or husband. Stuart takes enormous pride in his work but also displays thoughtful sensitivity.

* Stuart deserves the award as he gives a tremendous amount of effort digging every grave by hand. He also personally attends each ceremony and overlooks them with a high level of care.

* Horncastle cemetery has never looked so good Stuart Goodacre does a fantastic job, Stuart is a very dedicated lad and is a credit to the town , he always has a cheery smile and is willing to help and advise anyone that comes his way. If he hasn’t got a mower or strimmer in his hand he is guiding someone to a grave that someone can’t find. 

* Stuart keeps all the graves as if they belonged to members of his family with the attitude that if he was visiting the grave of a relative he would like to find the grave like those he tends.

Stuart’s surname disguises a pun. God’s Acre is another name for a burial ground. It derives from the German, Gottesacker (lit. God’s field), and is the term the Moravians use for their cemeteries. There is a Moravian God’s Acre in Chelsea. Note: the grave markers are democratically identical and laid flat, giving rise to the legend that Moravians were buried vertically. 

http://www.thisisthewestcountry.co.uk/news/somerset_news/10671298.Minehead_woman_wins_Embalmer_of_the_year_award/

http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/news/10674263.Eco_friendly_hearse__star_of_show__at_funeral_awards/

AW Lymn – The Family Funeral Service is acclaimed in the Nottingham Post

for its success in the Good Funeral Awards

Story here. 

Article in today’s Spectator by Clarissa Tan. (There is no paywall around this article, so I hope the Speccie won’t mind us reproducing it all.)

I am in a yurt, talking about death. Everyone is seated in a circle, and I am the next-to-last person to share. The last of the summer sun is shining through the entrance. At one end is a display coffin of biodegradable willow — there’s also tea and coffee, and coffin-shaped biscuits with skeleton-shaped icing.

‘I am a reporter,’ I say. ‘I’ve come to cover this event. But don’t worry, I won’t report what you share in this yurt. Also, I have cancer. I have been in treatment for one year, but now the treatment is over. I take one day at a time.’

There is silence, then hugs. I thought I would cry, but I don’t. Instead, I feel acceptance and a strange kernel of satisfaction. For the rest of my time here I am Death Girl, shrouded in drama.

The yurt is on the grounds of a beachfront hotel in Bournemouth. I am attending the Good Funeral Awards, meant to honour the best in the business. Running up to the awards dinner there are a series of activities such as the ‘death cafe’ I am participating in, where people mingle to mull mortality. Death cafes are now taking place all over the world, as Mark Mason has written in this magazine, but the weekend also will feature a number of speakers on subjects such as the use of LSD in the care of the terminally ill, memorial tattoos and what to wear for your final journey. An award will go to the embalmer of the year — a miniature coffin in the style of an Oscar.

I arrived expecting a weekend of black comedy. This is what I find, but there’s something else — a sincerity and straightforwardness that takes me by surprise. Many of the attendees are involved in the death business, as coffin makers and corpse tailors and funeral celebrants, because they feel our society does not pay enough attention to death. We avoid it, plaster over it, try to pretty it up and Botox it out of existence.

Even old age is taboo. As we all live longer and longer, so our actors and actresses, politicians and pop stars get younger every decade.

‘Why do we do this, when death is something that happens to all of us?’ lamented one woman.

Why, indeed? I’d done it too, until I discovered my illness. Then I thought of little else — about the fragility of life, the permanence of death. Friends sent me amulets, prayers, ginseng, ‘positive energy’. My heart opened, and something flooded in. What if death were not disconnection, but connection? What if we were just going to meet our Maker? Then death would not be severance, but reunion. It is not at all a fashionable point of view, but I believe in God — and a good one, at that. The belief fills me with healing, wonderful hope. It is the hope not that I will live. It is the hope that I am loved.

The awards dinner is actually a happy affair. The great and good of the funeral industry quaff champagne and exchange jokes. Opposite me at my table is a woman who runs a funeral company. She is flanked by her husband, who also manages the business, and her brother, who is up for gravedigger of the year. The actress Pam St Clement, whose EastEnders character Pat Butcher died on-screen in January last year, is here to present the prizes. Everyone claps and cheers. In the midst of death, we are in life.

It’s a fine line between the two. Looking at the people around me, women in evening dress and men in black tie, it strikes me that death can be a glamorous affair. I wonder if, working with funerals and the bereaved, one can also be too attached to the idea of death, taking refuge in it. That’s another thing I’ve realised, too. Twelve months of ill health, hospitals, medicines — while they were tough, they also gave me an identity. I am a journalist and death gave me a story.

I realise that although I am frightened of dying, there’s a also a tiny part of me that’s always been scared of living. The finality of death is hard. The uncertainties of life can be harder.

After the dinner, the winners and losers of the Good Funeral Awards get up to dance. I peek into the ballroom bespeckled with lights. What will they play? ‘Born to Die’? ‘Forever Young’? Perhaps ‘I Will Survive’? Or ‘Stayin’ Alive’? I decide I’ll take a cab back to my bed-and-breakfast and watch Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow on telly. Perhaps this is not the time for me to dance with death.