News from The Green Funeral Company
Rupert is a new trustee of the Natural Death Centre
Rupert is a new trustee of the Natural Death Centre, for more information please visit http://www.naturaldeath.org.uk/
We've moved to Dartington hall
We have moved our home to Totnes, and our place of work to Dartington
Hall.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Dartington Hall, it has, since the Thirties, been a pioneering charity nurturing ideas to address pressing problems. It's different departments work together for the advancement of the arts, sustainability and social justice by inspiring, hosting and experimenting with promising ideas and initiatives.
The Landscope project is a successful new initiative that we are proud to be associated with. It's vision is to promote sustainable land use through social and environmental enterprise. Landscope attracts, supports and promotes small-scale innovative and financially viable ventures that put people and enterprise back on the land, to build a sustainable and resilient local economy that will provide prosperity for the long term.
To find out more please visit the Landscope Project website at www.dartington.org/landscope
Totnes is home to the Transition Towns Initiative, an incredibly vibrant environmental and social movement that is busy re-imagining our communities in the face of the twin challenges of diminishing oil and gas supplies and climate change. This concept has in the past two years gone global, with towns everywhere implementing an Energy Descent Action Plan. It is the opposite of apocalyptic panic, and we urge you to get involved. We will be.
It's your funeral, a new publication
Last year saw the publication of a book called ‘It's Your Funeral' that features us, and others. It was written by our friend, Emma George, filmmaker, writer, mother, freaky dancer, --every inch the modern renaissance women. It is a beautiful and moving personal account of the possibilities of the modern funeral.
Below is a quote from an Amazon review:
"It is both thoughtful and practical and, like the best things in life, based in a simple but powerful idea: a good funeral is founded in emotional honesty and fuelled by love."
There is a link to her Amazon page here.
Watch us on Current TV...
A couple of years ago we were approached by Current TV, Al Gore's satellite riposte to Fox network, to do a piece about us. It was filmed at Trekenner Mill in Cornwall where we lived and worked before moving to Totnes. The movie will appear below, or click here
Ethical pre paid Funeral Plans
For several years we have felt that pre-paid funeral plans, and in particular the way they are aggressively marketed was an aspect of funerals that we wanted to avoid. Attempts to make you feel guilty at ‘burdening' your children with the cost, as well as a narrowing down of your choices, not to mention where on earth your money ends up were not things we felt comfortable with. However, their popularity in this country is growing, and people keep requesting them.
Enter Dr John Mallatrat, green undertaking pioneer, founder of Peace Funerals in Sheffield and someone we regard as a professional father figure. John came up with an idea that elegantly solved all of our concerns. He has created the UK's, possibly the worlds first ethically invested pre-payment funeral plans. This means that it is the only pre-payment scheme that guarantees the money you pay into a plan is not invested in weapons, oil, pornography or anything that knowingly creates social or environmental problems. This might sound obvious, but in the murky unaccountable world of modern capitalism and all of the problems that its implosion has created, this is radical, prescient and maybe even be a forerunner of some new morally transparent, global financial model.
Let's hope.
As for our worries that pre-payment schemes homogenise funerals, this is solved by not having set plans; each one is as bespoke as each of our funerals.
If you are thinking about pre paying for your funeral with us, the first step is to decide exactly what you would like; church service, crematorium, natural burial, coffin, estate car or hearse, jazz band, Devon or Cornwall etc. Then when you speak to us, you have a good idea already of what you require. Currently, it is difficult to pre pay for a plot in many natural burial grounds. If in the future we run our own site as we hope to, this will be possible with us. Keep your eyes peeled.
If you are interested in taking this further, please get in touch.
Counselling service.
It can be incredibly useful to talk to a counsellor after the funeral, we recommend Nicky Bell and will pay for the first session with her to see if it works for you.
Some of you may remember Nicky has worked with us in the past. She now runs her own counselling practice, and we are proud to welcome her back as an associate.