June 2019 – The Good Funeral Guide

The campaign is underway

26 June 2019

Fran Hall

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Categories: Dignity, Funerals

This has popped up on social media by the main funeral directing trade association, the NAFD. (That’s the one that the big, powerful corporates all belong to, not the other one that represents independent funeral directors, for anyone unfamiliar with the world of funerals).

Well, well, well. It was only a matter of time.

There must have been a lot of meetings of important men in suits trying to work out what to do about a tricky problem, as outlined by Dignity CEO Mick McCollum back in early 2018.

A report from CityWire warned, “Shares in the business are down 60% since early November, when boss Mike McCollum warned of increasing competition in the funeral space.

In this morning’s statement, Dignity said that over the last 18 months it had ‘consistently alerted the investment community as to the increasingly competitive environment in which it operates’.

‘Customers are increasingly price-conscious and in an over-supplied industry, are shopping around more,’ it said.“

Increasing competition. Like that’s a bad thing in a sector dominated by three huge companies built by buying up small independent businesses and industrialising what should never have been industrialised?

Oh, sorry, the increased competition means less market share for those men in suits and the shareholders that they serve.

And so here’s their solution. More of the smoke and mirrors, as so eloquently described by a GFG Blog reader here.

Dignity PLC, (whose management are so concerned about the state of the funeral industry that they and their spouses managed to offload millions of pounds of shares just before the value plummeted by half – see here) are the new nice guys in town.

They had a go last year and we didn’t pick it up – we don’t read the Daily Mail here at GFG Towers, but there was this swipe at ‘cowboy funeral directors’ s when they put out one of the expensive reports they publish every now and then to reassure their shareholders.

We did note that ‘The key message of Dignity being the saviour of standards in the funeral industry has been planted‘ in our blog post here last summer.

But we’ve been quite busy with other stuff, so we perhaps haven’t kept as close an eye on this Transformation Plan as we should have done.

“Ask us anything”, says Andrew Judd of Dignity, in his shirt sleeves, looking super friendly. If you really want to watch it, the YouTube link is here.

OK Andrew, here are a few questions, starting off with one we still don’t know the answer to:

Why do branches of Dignity funerals within just a few miles of each other charge such different prices for exactly the same services? (Refresh your memory here about how two different communities in London appear to be charged very differing prices by two Dignity branches trading under their original names.)

And for anyone struggling to know what questions might elicit really useful information from any funeral director, here are a few that you might want to ask before parting with your money:

Who owns this business? Is it still owned by the family whose name is over the door?

Who will be looking after us and assisting with the funeral arrangements? Will it be the same person throughout? Will they come to the ceremony with us?

Who will be looking after the person who has died? Can I meet them before engaging you?

Where will the person who has died be looked after? Can I have a look at the mortuary by appointment?

Can we come and help get our relative ready for the funeral? Can we wash and dress them ourselves? Will they stay here on these premises?

Can we come and visit them whenever we want?

Can we look after them at home and just use your expertise for advice? How much would that cost?

Can we supply our own coffin? Is there an additional charge for this? If so, how much?

Can we arrange our own transport for the coffin? Is there a charge for this? If so, how much? And why?

Can we carry the coffin ourselves? Are the costs reduced if we don’t need your staff to carry the coffin at the funeral? If so, by how much? If not, why not?

Am sure we could think of more, but please add your thoughts in the comments – got to dash this morning.

Be Better

16 June 2019

Fran Hall

1 Comment

Categories: Progressive funeral directors, The future of funerals, uber undertakers

The Good Funeral Guide is delighted to announce a day out with a difference.

On Saturday September 21^st, we will be hosting ‘Be Better’, a sparkling day featuring a whole stage full of inspirational speakers who are changing the world of funerals.

And we have found the perfect venue, the vibrant, creative hub of The Other Place, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s studio theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon.

The Other Place was established by the extraordinary Buzz Goodbody, the radical, revolutionary feminist director, whose working life was mostly spent with the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Buzz was the pioneering visionary at the helm of The Other Place’s artistic direction in its early days, and it was her energy and input that made The Other Place ‘the most productive tin shed in theatre history’.

It feels very fitting that most of our guest speakers at this special event are women. Bright, intelligent and determined women, who are unwilling to accept the status quo when they can see ways to improve it. They are all walking their talk.

‘Be Better’ is an opportunity to meet and hear from some of the best, most progressive and innovative practitioners working within funerals. They’re all fabulous, interesting people too, and well worth hearing from.

Our line-up includes Louise and Anna from Life, Death Whatever and Fran and Carrie from A Natural Undertaking experienced TED Talks speakers, and Cara from ARKA Original Funerals, featured in the beautiful Dead Good film (which will be screened during the afternoon).

Also on our stage during the day will be Beverley Bulmer, from Rosedale Funeral Home, Holly from Holly’s Funerals, Daniel and Abi from Abney Funeral Services, Xina Gooding Broderick from Gooding Funeral Services, Beverley Bulmer from Rosedale Funeral Home and Emma Curtis, from Ceremony Matters, with Steven Cousins from Brahms Electric Vehicles joining a special guest to talk about the environmental impact of funeral choices.

Doors will open for early arrivals at 09.30 and the programme will begin with a welcome from the GFG directors on stage in the Studio Theatre at 10.45 with our first speakers on the stage at 11.00.

Following the screening of Dead Good at 3.00, the director Rehana Rose will join all of our speakers on stage for a Q & A and audience discussion, before the day ends at 5.30 and we can all go to the pub.

We have exclusive use of the upstairs space at The Other Place, so there will be lots of opportunity to meet and chat with others if you can tear yourself away from the speakers, while Susie’s Café Bar downstairs offers hot and cold drinks, and an all-day menu that includes veggie and vegan options.

We will also be holding two Death Cafés during the day, which will take place in the very special Buzz Goodbody Room. NB places for the Death Café’s will be limited, and we’ll let you know how to put your name down in advance closer to the time.

‘Be Better’ is going to be an unmissable event for anyone interested in the world of funerals. It will be a chance for those working in the sector to come and find out how different things could be, but more so, it’s a chance for everyone who might ever need to organise a funeral to come and find out what’s possible.

You don’t have to do things the way they’ve always been done.

Be Better.

Be there!

See you in Stratford-upon-Avon on Saturday 21st September

Tickets available from the RSC at their box office here

£25 for the whole day, including the film screening, concessions £15.

Unlikely bedfellows

9 June 2019

Fran Hall

3 Comments

Categories: Dignity, Natural Death Centre

The GFG and the Natural Death Centre charity have long enjoyed an unofficial mutual admiration – nothing ever written down, but a kindred fellowship of ideas and ideals.

Founded in 1991 by the late Nicholas Albery and his wife Josefine Speyer, the charity was set up with three aims in mind:

To help break the taboo around dying and death, and to make it a natural topic to discuss over dinner.
To bring the dying person back to the centre of proceedings and enable them to die at home if they so wished.
To empower people and make them aware of their legal rights and choices, taking the power away from institutions.

The NDC inspired the whole of today’s movement towards individuals reclaiming dying and death as a natural part of life, encouraging people to take control of the end of life in much the same way as the natural childbirth movement encouraged women to reclaim birth as a natural process.

It encouraged Ken West OBE to begin the natural burial movement in 1993, and encouraged him and others “to be iconoclasts and attack the so-called traditions” according to Josefine.

It was the NDC that inspired Charles Cowling to start the Good Funeral Guide, and the NDC that encouraged the late Jon Underwood to found the Death Cafémovement in the UK.

The home funeral network and the death doula movement took inspiration and encouragement from the existence of the NDC, and countless families have used the Natural Death Handbook for guidance and support in caring for their dying and dead relatives.

It has had astounding success for a small charity, and all of us in the progressive funeral world owe the NDC a great deal. So to find the NDC sharing exhibition space with Dignity Funerals at this year’s National Funeral Exhibition was a surprise, to say the least.

To move from the robust stance against ‘juggernaut firms committed to feeding share-holders and venture capitalists at the expense of the customer’ as recorded in this 2012 NDC press release to the charity accepting an offer of free exhibiting space on Dignity’s stand at the biennial national trade exhibition seems to have been a huge change of tack.

The directors of the GFG felt compelled to outline their concerns at how this connection between the NDC and Dignity might be perceived. We couldn’t understand how it had come about, nor the reasoning behind it. We laid out our thoughts in an e-mail to the trustees of the charity last week, and then met with two of the trustees at the weekend.

From this meeting, our understanding is that the NDC is very approving of Dignity’s recently launched direct cremation service, as it provides the cheapest direct cremation service nationally.

It appears that they also feel they will be able to positively influence the decisions and strategic direction that Dignity takes through dialogue and discussion with the company, and therefore the charity has taken the decision to have ongoing talks with Dignity representatives.

Our misgivings are that the founding principles of the Natural Death Centre are in danger of being appropriated to enhance the reputation of Dignity PLC at a time when the company’s share price has slipped by over 70% and their main strategic objective is to ‘protect market share and reposition the Group for growth’ (see page 10 of Dignity’s most recent Annual Report).

We fear that the NDC charity’s history and good name are of great value to a company with 830 branches nationwide, and being seen to be in close connection to Dignity in any way, without any resulting, visible improvements in Dignity’s strategy and practice, is potentially perilous. We think that the charity’s hopes for positive influence on such a ‘juggernaut firm’ are optimistic.

However, we wish the Natural Death Centre the very best of luck in their aims.

It’s a big task ahead.