Whether we like to think about it or not, our own mortality is a very real thing. As funeral professionals, we help people face loss. But what about facing the process of death, and everything else in between? These 8 videos are some of the most inspiring we’ve found on the web to help tackle […] The post 8 Videos That Inspire A New Attitude on Grief, Death & Dying appeared first on funeralOne Blog. 8 Videos That Inspire A New Attitude on Grief, Death & Dying published first on YouTube via Tumblr 8 Videos That Inspire A New Attitude on Grief, Death & Dying
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WHEELING, IL— The Cremation Association of North America (CANA), in partnership with Cremation Strategies & Consulting, has developed a new, exclusive member benefit to ensure crematories’ operating policies and procedures are comprehensive and customized to their needs. CANA staff report that the sample document most commonly requested by cremationists is a Standard Operating Procedures Manual. In response to their members’ needs, CANA presents the Crematory Management Program as a new benefit of membership from the only association that is all things cremation. “I have observed CANA members’ business growing organically over time, but too often the details of policies and procedures haven’t kept up with this success. This benefit is a great opportunity to get your house in order, on your own or with assistance,” says Barbara Kemmis, Executive Director of CANA. CANA engaged Cremation Strategies & Consulting (CSC, Larry Stuart, Jr., principal) to develop and provide this new benefit. “I’m really proud of the work we’ve done on this because this will also reduce your liability. We’re guilty of outdated policies and procedures because we’re busy, but we have to make sure that our crematories have comprehensive, implemented, and enforced policies and procedures to train employees and protect against liability,” says Larry Stuart, Jr. of CSC. All CANA members have access to a comprehensive Table of Contents broken into four main categories:
Designed to organize a business’s existing Standard Operating Procedures, the full outline acts as a guide to prompt the creation of new procedures to fill existing gaps. CANA Members have exclusive access to a comprehensive Table of Contents plus samples and a template to develop a fully customized SOP Manual. The benefit includes a complimentary 30-minute phone consultation with Cremation Strategies & Consulting’s principal Larry Stuart, Jr., to address these gaps and to identify any blind-spots. The program also allows for further development as needed (at a reduced cost to CANA members), to customize a SOP Manual specific to your business. Visit gocana.org/crematorymanagement to get started and contact CANA’s Membership Manager [email protected] with questions. Building a custom SOP with Larry Stuart, Jr. at cremationstrategy.com/standard-operating-procedures at an exclusive discount to CANA Members. About CANA Founded in 1913, the Cremation Association of North America (CANA) is an international organization of over 3,300 members, composed of funeral homes, cemeteries, crematories, industry suppliers, and consultants. CANA members believe that cremation is preparation for memorialization. The post New CANA Benefit: Crematory Management Program appeared first on Connecting Directors. New CANA Benefit: Crematory Management Program published first on YouTube via Tumblr New CANA Benefit: Crematory Management Program Indianapolis, IN: Joe Weigel, principal at Weigel Strategic Marketing, recently delivered his “Media: Friend or Foe” presentation at the 2018 PLPA College event in Cincinnati, OH. As the close of his seminar, he outlined the steps he used to generate an actual TV interview on the previous day that promoted the pet loss industry and the 2018 PLPA College event. “In addition to a great presentation, it certainly was an added bonus for Joe to get the interview on the CBS station to promote PLPA and our event”, stated Jodi Clock, co-chair of PLPA. “Joe was also gracious enough to provide attendees with the actual materials he used to contact the media about doing a story on pet loss. These resources can now be put to use by our members to generate publicity in their markets.” Sheila Gray, morning co-anchor of Good Morning, Cincinnati, interviewed Roberta Knauf, CPLP, of Robs Pets in Hermitage, PA in studio on Wednesday, August 22. The interview touched on the recent trends in pet loss as well as promoting the PLPA College event that started the next morning. “Having been a former college instructor, I know the importance of providing real world examples to complement ‘classroom’ learning,” stated Weigel. “In addition, providing the attendees with materials and resources to use when they return home is one of the value-added benefits I like to offer any organization that enlists me for a presentation or seminar.” About Weigel Strategic Marketing: Founded in 2012, Weigel Strategic Marketing is a consulting firm delivering expertise and results across three interrelated marketing disciplines: communications, branding and strategy. To learn more, visit www.weigelstrategicmarketing.webs.com, call (317) 608-8914 or email the company at [email protected]. About PLPA: The Pet Loss Professionals Alliance is committed to being an educational resource to its members. The organization does this through the creation of programs to profitably meet the changing needs of the pet death care industry and their process partners in the areas of cemeteries, crematories and pet loss facilities, as well as the creation of standards to willfully meet our customers’ expectations. PLPA members, including pet loss suppliers and pet death care operators, are be dedicated to the respectful and dignified treatment of pets entrusted to them. Photo: Sheila Gray (right), morning co-anchor of Good Morning, Cincinnati, interviews Roberta Knauf, CPLP, of Robs Pets in Hermitage, PA in the WKRC studio on Wednesday, August 22. The interview touched on the recent trends in pet loss as well as promoting the PLPA College event that started the next morning. The post Weigel Presents Real Life Case Study at PLPA College appeared first on Connecting Directors. Weigel Presents Real Life Case Study at PLPA College published first on YouTube via Tumblr Weigel Presents Real Life Case Study at PLPA College Western culture tends to have a distant relationship with death and mortality and Sam Coulton, an architecture masters student at Bartlett School of Architecture, wants to usher in a new era of death-consciousness for London, England. Coulton has designed a concept future for the city in which mortality is a visually unvoidable idea in daily life that we could see in the rain, in the plants, on the buildings, and even in our poo. Just 150 years ago, we were caring for our own dead: washing them, dressing them, and resting our dead in the parlor of our personal homes for visitation before digging graves using shovels and burying family in parks near the center of town. This is an incredibly intimate relationship to have with our dead and a relationship that became increasingly distant following the civil war. The war catalyzed the popularization of embalming, the traditional funeral home, and, ultimately, the Big Death industry we know today. Coulton believes that a return to a death-and-mortality-conscious culture would drive awareness for important environmental and social issues of today and inspire action. He explains that lack of mortal sensibility is driving “extreme climate uncertainty, population growth and political instability due to impulsive decision making with little regard for the past or future Londoner.” Coulton’s concept design for London utilizes Alkile Hydrolysis paired with an environmentally-neutral dye to gradually stain the entire city of London blue.
In his proposal called London Physic Gardens: A New London Necropolis Coulton lays out a plan to transform London’s Physic Gardens into a crematory/cemetery/memorial garden experience. Bodies arriving at the concept London Physic Gardens will be wrapped in a Prussian blue-dye shroud before entering the Alkaline Hydrolysis chamber. Inside the Aquamation chamber, the Prussian blue pigment will leach into the water which is then drained and used to nourish the gardens. Coulton says that the liquid resulting from Alkaline Hydrolysis contains amino acids, sugars, and salts and can be used to nurture plants. “This drained blue water would also leach from the soil into the Thames, dying the river blue. It would also enter the water cycle, raining down on the city and eventually staining its buildings blue, too,” Dezeen explains. And if the dye leaches into the drinking water… it will even dye our poop blue…
What do you think of dying a city blue as a reminder of mortality in order to inspire social activism? Tell us in the comments! The post This Radical Proposal Uses Alkaline Hydrolysis Water to Stain London Blue appeared first on Connecting Directors. This Radical Proposal Uses Alkaline Hydrolysis Water to Stain London Blue published first on YouTube via Tumblr This Radical Proposal Uses Alkaline Hydrolysis Water to Stain London Blue The funerals of Aretha Franklin and John McCain are coming up this Saturday. With thousands wanting to pay tribute to these outstanding individuals, it’s a challenge to coordinate multiple events in different places. Funeral directors are rising to this challenge. Aretha Franklin’s Funeral Arrangements Consider the many elements the Swanson Funeral Home is handling for “The […] via Tumblr Funeral Arrangements for Aretha Franklin and John McCain Are you ready for more calls? Of course! $8.99 Goldfish could be the ticket to “More Call Bliss!” Besides more calls Ryan tackles influencer marketing, explains what it is and how it CAN WORK for your funeral home. Also, does my community engagement and exposure really matter and…. How do I tell my community that our funeral home serves all ethnicities and religions? You will be surprised at Ryan’s response! _________________________________________________________________________ About Ryan Thogmartin Ryan Thogmartin is a death care entrepreneur and the CEO of DISRUPT Media and creator of ConnectingDirectors.com. | Follower of Christ | Husband | Father | Entrepreneur | Host of #DISRUPTu! and #FUNERALnationtv | Lover of Skittles About DISRUPT Media Most deathcare companies struggle with Facebook marketing. We provide a process for creating personalized Facebook content that will drive community engagement and measurable leads ensuring growth and profitability. The post $8.99 GOLDFISH = MONEY | DISRUPTu! 050 appeared first on Connecting Directors. $8.99 GOLDFISH = MONEY | DISRUPTu! 050 published first on YouTube via Tumblr $8.99 GOLDFISH = MONEY | DISRUPTu! 050 Here’s a Death Cartoon for home brewers. Of course a growler would be a perfect urn for cremated remains! The only challenge would be the relatively small opening for getting those cremated remains inside. And if that person was larger-than-life in life, there might be extra leftovers to share. via Tumblr Death Cartoon: The Best Cremation Urn for Home Brewers Over the last decade, the funeral industry has become lost on the path of merchandise and distribution. As most industries were increasing the quality of products, refining user experience, and selling online, funeral homes were doubling down on offering cheaply manufactured goods that you couldn’t buy on the internet. This has not been an effective strategy for funeral homes and we are just starting a period of correction. The option for online shopping is slowly integrating into the funeral space as well as some emerging products with top-notch quality (You can see our favorites here). This week, an experientially powerful modern urn was unveiled by Dutch designer Maria Tyakina. The Dome urn has two components: an inner container crafted from white Bianco Carrara marble and an exterior glass dome cover hand-painted with an elegant fading ombre. The effect of this combination of layering and materials is profound.
User experience tends to be overlooked in funeral merchandise. We forget that when we return ashes to the customer in a zip-tied bag stored in a black plastic box, the remains take on the value of those materials by association – disposable, ugly, unremarkable. Alternatively, if we return the remains in a 24K gold box, the family then perceives them as having significant value and preciousness. Maybe the plastic box was popularized intentionally to create poor experiences for cremation families with the hope of pushing them back to burial… but whatever the reason, this needs to change. The plastic box is a 100% unacceptable way to return ashes to a family.
The Dome urn shows us the type of moving experience we can have with cremated remains when given the right type of thoughtful design and experience.
Tyakina carefully chose the materials crafting a precise type of experience for the families. The marble projects a combination of tradition, value, security, and confidence. The painted glass dome imbues a sense of preciousness, protection, and mystery. Once assembled, it becomes clear that there is a final component and the most important part of this design – the vacant space between the exterior of the urn and the interior of the glass. This space feels like a contained spiritual atmosphere that is both comforting and compelling. In its final assembled state, the interior marble container can be seen as a ghost-like silhouette through the ombre painted glass. This visual experience paired with the spiritual atmosphere phenomenon results in an unavoidable and powerful sensation of presence. The shape of this modern urn was chosen in an equally as thoughtful way.
The Dome urn was commissioned by ST Natuursteen and will be shown as part of the Dutch Stuff presentation taking place at London’s annual design festival, which will run from September 20-23, 2018. How can we tastefully send cremated remains home with families who do not choose to buy an urn? The post See How This Experience-focused Urn Projects a Profound Sense of Presence appeared first on Connecting Directors. See How This Experience-focused Urn Projects a Profound Sense of Presence published first on YouTube via Tumblr See How This Experience-focused Urn Projects a Profound Sense of Presence Orlando, FL – Foundation Partners Group, a leading provider of innovative burial, cremation and cemetery experiences and products, has announced that it has acquired Rost Funeral Home in Mountain Home, ID. With the acquisition, Foundation Partners Group’s network of locations in Idaho expands to five funeral homes. “The acquisition of Rost Funeral Home offers an exceptional opportunity to build upon our foundation in Idaho’s Treasure Valley,” stated Bob Bukala, President and CEO of Foundation Partners Group. “As part of our development strategy, we look to affiliate with firms that both complement our existing infrastructure and promote personalized service in their operations. Rost Funeral Home delivers on both points and we are delighted that Jerry and Janette Rost have chosen to join the Foundation Partner Group family.” Jerry and Janette Rost purchased the business in 2005 and have grown along with the Mountain Home community. Jerry has a long history with funeral service in central Idaho having started his funeral apprenticeship in 1971 in Boise, ID and has dedicated his entire career to serving families throughout the Treasure Valley. “When Janette and I purchased the funeral home, we decided to do more than simply run a business; we wanted to become very involved in all aspects of the Mountain Home community,” commented Jerry Rost. “Over the years, we’ve sponsored – and more importantly participated in – dozens of local events; that’s one reason our funeral home has been so successful.” Within the past year, the couple made the decision that it was time to step back from the day-to-day operations of the firm. They sought out a partner who would allow them to transition out of the business on their terms, while still serving families and their community. “Working with the team at Foundation Partners during the acquisition has been a very easy process,” added Janette Rost. “They approached us in a professional manner and didn’t burden us with a lot of paperwork. Whenever possible, things were taken care of with a simple phone call and not with endless emails.” “With this acquisition, we have found a great partner who shares our vision and passion for being a leading provider of best-in-class funeral experiences,” stated Erin Whitaker, Senior Vice President of Business Development at Foundation Partners. “We look forward to helping Rost Funeral Home grow its passion for community involvement and continue to serve families in the Mountain Home area.” About Foundation Partners Group: Foundation Partners Group (FPG) is a leading provider of innovative burial, cremation and cemetery experiences and products. As one of the largest privately-owned funeral and cemetery operators, FPG owns and operates funeral homes, cremation centers and cemeteries in 17 states, and is actively seeking to expand its locations throughout the U.S. With headquarters in Orlando, Florida, FPG is committed to revolutionizing the funeral profession through their innovative ShareLife® customer experience-centered approach and harnessing the power of relationship and partnership. For more information, visit the Foundation Partners Group website at www.foundationpartners.com. The post Rost Funeral Home Joins Foundation Partners Group Family appeared first on Connecting Directors. Rost Funeral Home Joins Foundation Partners Group Family published first on YouTube via Tumblr Rost Funeral Home Joins Foundation Partners Group Family The times, they are changing. And it’s not necessarily funeral homes that are changing the nature of the funeral profession. Rather, it’s individuals, who we are coining “Funeralpreneurs” who are going a bit off the beaten path to forge a new way for the funeral profession. These individuals went against the grain based on their […] The post 5 Funeralpreneurs Who Are Changing The Landscape of Funeral Service in 2018 appeared first on funeralOne Blog. 5 Funeralpreneurs Who Are Changing The Landscape of Funeral Service in 2018 published first on YouTube via Tumblr 5 Funeralpreneurs Who Are Changing The Landscape of Funeral Service in 2018 |
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