Archive: August 2012

Council warns undertaker about soliciting

13 August 2012
Charles
6 Comments
Categories: Co-operative Funeralcare

 

Back in July we posted a report about an unsatisfactory Co-op Funeralcare-arranged funeral: “Beverley Webb and Michelle Blakesley said the way Co-op Funeralcare handled Gloria Roper’s service was ‘shambolic’ after one worker said: ‘We’ve brought out our 4.15pm instead.’” Read it here.

The matter we publicise today is Beverley and Michelle’s allegation that the Weymouth branch of Co-operative Funeralcare, acting as the Coroner’s agent, solicited business from them.

Very few bereaved people who have had an unsatisfactory funeral experience follow through. Most shrug and leave it all behind — understandably. It’s why the NAFD receives so few complaints, and is able to point to that as descriptive of the excellence of its members.

The rights of the bereaved are defined and reinforced by cases like this. We all owe Beverley and Michelle a debt.

First, an email from Steve Cheeseman, Business Support & Facilities Manager Dorset County Council:

 

Dear Ms Blakesley and Ms Webb

Once again, I was sorry to read of the difficulties you experienced with the Co-operative FuneralCare at Weymouth following the sudden death of your mother.

I have discussed your complaint with the Western Dorset District Coroner (Michael Johnston) and the South West Sector Manager of Co-operative FuneralCare Services.

Generally, Michael Johnston is happy with the service provided by Co-operative FuneralCare. 

Section 1.14 of the Dorset County Council’s contract for Coroners Removals states:

“The contractor shall not, under any circumstances, actively canvass relatives or friends of the deceased with a view to carrying out the funeral arrangements.  Any infringement may result in the removal of the contractor from the Coroner’s list.  The contractor may leave their business card with the bereaved, but shall, in addition, leave with them a leaflet issued by the Coroner which provides relevant information regarding the arrangement to be made.  The contractor may carry out funeral arrangements if the relative of the deceased makes the initial approach.  It must not be implied to any bereaved family that the contractor must be instructed to carry out the funeral arrangements.  No pressure must be exerted on the bereaved families to attempt to obtain instructions to carry out the funeral arrangements.”

Co-operative FuneralCare has confirmed that their business card was left together with the Coroner’s leaflet.  However, I have written to the Weymouth Co-operative FuneralCare Service reminding them of the terms of the contract and that any breach would result in a review of their contract.

The County Council is responsible for supporting the Coroner in his work, but this does not include the provision of services provided by the funeral directors.  You may be aware, already, that there is a National Association of Funeral Directors and members of the Association are required to abide by a stringent code of practice.  The Association’s professional standards board is responsible for investigating complaints about the conduct of its members and they can be contacted on  0845 230 1343 should you require any further help.

As stated in my earlier e-mail to you, I have dealt with your complaint under Stage 1 of the County Council’s complaints procedure.  If you are not satisfied with the outcome of my investigation, you can ask for your complaint to be considered under Stage 2 of the procedure by writing to the Chief Executive.  

Regards, 

Steve Cheeseman
Business Support & Facilities Manager
County Hall 

 

Here’s text of the Council’s letter to Funeralcare:

 

Dear Ms Lee 

I have received a complaint from Ms Blakesley and Ms Webb relating to the service provided by you following the sudden death of their mother, Gloria Roper.  Their complaint is that you used your contractual position to solicit business and that this was in breach of the contractual agreement with the Dorset County Council.  

I write to remind you that Section 1.14 of the County Council’s contract for Coroners removals states that: 

“The contractor shall not, under any circumstances, actively canvass relatives or friends of the deceased with a view to carrying out the funeral arrangements.  Any infringement may result in the removal of the contractor from the Coroner’s list.  The contractor may leave their business card with the bereaved, but shall, in addition, leave with them a leaflet issued by the Coroner which provides relevant information regarding the arrangement to be made.  The contractor may carry out funeral arrangements if the relative of the deceased makes the initial approach.  It must not be implied to any bereaved family that the contractor must be instructed to carry out the funeral arrangements.  No pressure must be exerted on the bereaved families to attempt to obtain instructions to carry out the funeral arrangements.” 

I have spoken to the coroner for the Western Dorset District, Michael Johnston, who has confirmed that soliciting for services whilst undertaking a service on his behalf, would not be acceptable. 

I write to remind you of the terms the contract and that any such breach would result in a review of your contract for the provision of such services.  

Yours sincerely 

 

Steve Cheeseman

Business Support and Facilities Manager 

cc Mr Jack Walsh, South West Sector Manager, Co-operative FuneralCare

 

This is not the end of Beverley and Michelle’s campaign by any means, by the way. They’re not satisfied with this mere warning shot from Mr Cheeseman. They feel the contract was breached.

 

 

 

 

FD Darren goes the extra mile

13 August 2012
Charles
4 Comments
Categories: Co-operative Funeralcare, coffins, funeral directors

Darren Barker is the manager of Anglia Co-operative*, St Neots. When the family of a little girl who died last year found out how much it would cost to have the Gruffalo painted on her coffin, Darren offered to do it for them. He gave up his days off to do it.

Says local celebrant Viv O’Neil: “He always gives 120% and gets so upset if anything goes wrong.”

The first draft of this piece mistakenly named Co-operative Funeralcare as Darren’s employer

Open letter to George Tinning, Managing Director, Co-operative Funeralcare #4

13 August 2012
Charles
19 Comments
Categories: Co-operative Funeralcare, funeral directors

Dear Mr Tinning,

Woo, sorry! Caught you unawares? Thought we’d lost interest? No, we’re not going away. And not just us. There’s the GMB union, too. As you know, they’re disappointed in you for derecognising them in 2007. You can read their own campaign page here.

How on earth can a co-operative banish a trade union?

In the aftermath of the Dispatches Undercover Undertaker exposé you addressed your ‘colleagues’ and told them that you were going to seek the advice of the NAFD and find out if they could suggest any improvements in your levels of service. How’s that going? We don’t know of any statement from the NAFD about this. Come on, you must have some influence with those guys.

The word on the street is that you think it’s all going to blow over, the storm that followed that programme. Is that what you really think? Is that why you have kept so quiet?

Is that why you have never had the courtesy to reply to any of our letters to you?

If so, then, strategically, that you’re making a mistake. Consumer scrutiny of Funeralworld is going to intensify. As you know, ITV is making its own documentary about the industry. There’s another storm coming very soon. Okay, it may not be Funeralcare at the epicentre this time, but it’ll churn up memories. Worse still, the reputational damage to the entire industry may well be grave. When consumers start to see a pattern, they’re going to reckon all funeral directors are  as bad as each other. There are nasty times a-coming – possibly very nasty times indeed.

There’s going to be renewed call for regulation, isn’t there? Which brings us back to the NAFD. What price their reassurances about the efficacy of self-regulation now?

Mr Tinning, do you begin to recognise the grave damage you have done to the many decent people who work in this industry? Including your own ‘colleagues’?

Good funeral directors are governed by values, not greed. You are the corporate player that lays claim to the values of the Rochdale Pioneers – the highest values there are. The other big players – Dignity, FSP, LM – play by the rules of capitalism. They’re not very good at it, and they’ll fail, but at least they do not pretend to be other than they are. Did you read the comments on this blog written by EX CO OP EMPLOYEE? Read them here and here. What do you say?

Mr Tinning, the governing purpose of the Good Funeral Guide is to sing praises, not dig dirt. It’s sad, weary work, belabouring your organisation. Around 40,000 people visit this site every month from all over the English-speaking world. They all wonder why on earth you do not reply to our letters.

It’s time you acknowledged your accountability and had your say.

With all best wishes,

Charles

Funeral director sponsors Olympian

12 August 2012
Charles
No comments
Categories: Uncategorised

From the Daily Mail:

Chris Mears had a five per cent chance. Of living, that is. Nothing to do with diving. A five per cent chance of surviving an emergency operation on a ruptured spleen in a training hospital in Sydney.

Impressive then that on Tuesday night, three years on, the 19-year-old was competing in an Olympic final. Especially as he wasn’t supposed to get past the preliminary stage anyway.

He finished a respectable 9th in the 3m springboard, some way off Russian winner Ilya Zakharov, but 9th in the world isn’t too bad when you’ve been through what he’s been through.

Chris Mears had a five per cent chance. Of living, that is. Nothing  to do with diving. A five per cent chance of surviving an emergency operation on a ruptured spleen in a training hospital in Sydney.

Impressive then that on Tuesday night, three years on, the 19-year-old was competing in an Olympic final. Especially as he wasn’t supposed to get past the preliminary stage anyway.

He finished a respectable 9th in the 3m springboard, some way off Russian winner Ilya Zakharov, but 9th in the world isn’t too bad when you’ve been through what he’s been through.

Chris was sponsored by Reading funeral director AB Walker. Read all about it here.

Hat-tip to Tony Piper. 

Ain’t Going Yet

10 August 2012
Charles
2 Comments
Categories: funeral music, music

Billy Jenkins is a guitarist, composer, bandleader, performer & humanist funeral officiant in London. These are his funeral wishes:

Simple cremation for me

From Poppy’s.

No funeral.
No music – for when a musician dies, there is nothing but

Silence…..

If anyone wishes to:
Choose just one of my pieces of music.
Play loud.
Really listen and feel the resonation.
When finished, raise a glass  and shout three times:

‘Oh YEAH!’
‘Oh YEAH!’
‘Oh YEAH!’

Lyric extract for ‘I Am A Man From Lewisham’

Wherever I die – bring my ash and bone

Back to the place – that I call home

Been north and south

And east and west

I know the place – that I love best

‘Cause I’m a man – from Lewisham

Oh yes I am – From Lewisham.

As reviewed in the Daily Mirror:

    ‘One of the great unclassifiable forces in the British underground. His ever-fascinating career takes a joyful turn on an album of pubsy knees-ups, blues growling and deliriously rude brass. He also conducts humanist funerals. Versatile!’ 
                                                         Gavin Martin / The Daily Mirror

 Here is a song he wrote.

I still got some teeth
Grey matter underneath
So hold the funeral wreath
I Ain’t Going Yet

I can still walk
And  boy how I can talk
Get that wine uncorked 
I Ain’t Going Yet

Where’s the time gone? 
I don’t know
I just arrived now it’s time to go
Seems that I can’t have no more
Death is knockin’ at my door

Excuse me if I ask it
But I don’t need no casket
You don’t seem to grasp it
I Ain’t Going Yet 
OH NO!
I Ain’t Going Yet 
OH NO!
I Ain’t Going Yet 
OH NO!

Just one last request
Before I’m laid to rest
There’s  something I must stress
I Ain’t Going Yet 
OH NO!
I Ain’t Going Yet 
OH NO!
I Ain’t Going Yet 
OH NO!
I Ain’t Going Yet 
OH NO!

[wadya mean OH NO!? You mean OH YEAH!!] 
© 2000 Billy Jenkins  PRS/MCPS

    from the CD ‘LIFE’ VOTP  VOCD 023

Mixed metaphor of the day

10 August 2012
Charles
No comments
Categories: Quotes

When debating the murder of 6 Sikhs in Wisconsin by a white supremacist:

Parliamentary affairs minister Pawan Kumar Bansal accused Akali Dal of “baking political cake on funeral pyre” of the victims.

Source

The seaside memorial bench

10 August 2012
Charles
9 Comments
Categories: memorialisation

Ken West thinks the seaside memorial bench a peculiarly English thing. Is it? The GFG simply doesn’t get out enough to know. Do our continental friends and neighbours commemorate their LOs in this way?

Ken also observes that seaside promenades are becoming very popular for the strewing of mortal cremains — often so thickly it take weeks for them to disappear.

Views?

We salute you, Susan!

9 August 2012
Charles
5 Comments
Categories: Natural Death Centre

Susan Morris is no stranger to putting herself out for others. She is Trustee, Company Secretary and mainstay of the Natural Death Centre; an award-winning palliative care nurse; and, as you can see, an Olympic Volunteer. As you may imagine, she’s also terrifically nice — and, as her photo attests, she looks great in pink, a notoriously difficult thing to pull off. It makes a change from black, she tells us.

Susan is presently to be found at Kings Cross, St Pancras and Euston train stations giving advice about travel and talking up the allure of Camden.

Susan wonders if anyone else from Funeralworld is involved with the Olympics in any way? If you are, do write or phone and tell us what you are doing.

Is there an Official Undertaker for the games? There must be. If you know who it is, please leak the information in strictest confidence.

Is ceremony dying?

9 August 2012
Charles
17 Comments
Categories: ceremony, crematoria, direct cremation, eulogy, Formality vs informality, funeral customs, funeral trends, Memorial service, Requiem Mass, Ritual

Posted by Richard Rawlinson

This seems a strange question just after economically-challenged Britain has hosted the Olympics, a no-expenses-spared ceremonial games that unites nations in celebration of sporting prowess.

But as the cult of individuality nibbles away at established social conventions, more and more people seem to be caring less for ceremony on a more intimate level. It didn’t seem particularly surprising when a woman of my acquaintance announced on facebook she’d just had a quickie marriage in a register office, adding friends would be invited to a bash some months after the honeymoon. I’ve also attended a memorial drinks party several weeks after a no-frills committal to which only family were invited to the crematorium. As we tucked into canapes, the only significance of the occasion was that we all knew the reason for being there, and our conversation reflected this fact.

Even those who opt for ceremony can sometimes offer reasons other than a deep emotional or spiritual need to mark a profound rite of passage. Some admit to getting little satisfaction out of the ceremony itself, saying it’s just the bourgeois thing to do—and a means to the end of gathering people together for that social jolly afterwards.

It goes without saying there are many ceremony options available, though more for marriages than funerals. If a register office is deemed too sterile to get married in and you don’t want a church ceremony, you can choose any number of venues from a beach on a paradise buy cialis online melbourne island to an aristocratic stately pile. If a crematorium is deemed too soulless for your funeral plans, the alternatives are more limited.

Some non-religious folk opt for a church funeral followed by a brief committal at the crematorium, seeing this as the best way to do justice to the dead through words and music before the final farewell. However, while some liberal churches allow risqué eulogies and secular music, traditional churches remind us we’re in a house of God. When in Rome…

Some again opt for graveside ceremonies in woodland cemeteries, seeing this as solving the time problem of the crematorium, but with natural surroundings which might appeal more than incense-scented churches, with their icons making visible religious purpose.

Meanwhile, others are opting to get the cremation over with swiftly so they can plan a ceremony with the ashes rather than the body. This can, of course, be anything from the aforesaid memorial party, with urn of cremains in attendance, to something more ritualistic such as the scattering of ashes in a favoured, natural beauty spot.

Time and money are important considerations in life, and both can be found more readily with pre-planning. But there’s more to meaningful ceremony than advance scheduling and financial planning. Whether it’s a hit-the-spot celebration-of-life speech or a requiem mass, providers must provide, and receivers must be open to their cathartic potential. It’s a two-way process. Or is apathy as relevant a consumer choice as any other?

The Good Funeral Guide
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