New elements in next year’s festival will include
the first secondary school conference on death
and grieving in conjunction with Child Bereavement UK,a range of new topics including coping with sudden deaths, advice on being at the
bedside of someone who is dying and dementia
and end of life.
There will be writing workshops, photography
projects and singing events as well as a Day
of the Dead Ceilidh with local band Kismet,
more Death Cafes in Oxford and around the
county and repeats of some of the most popular elements from last time. I am delighted to
be working with Sue Brayne (The D Word) and
Hazel May (co author of Enriched Care Planning
for People with Dementia) in developing this
Festival. We look forward to seeing you there.
I think Finity in Buckinghamshire are doing
very interesting work and will be featuring it in
the Festival.
I am a celebrant and I run a green burial ground on the Oxfordshire/Wiltshire
border. I am passionate about working
with people so they understand all the
choices they have about how they go
about arranging funerals and burials. It
rapidly became clear to me that I needed
to reach people before they come to me
at the burial ground when a death has already occurred. They are then in a state
of shock and grief and it feels hard to
take the time to think about things slowly. When the person who has died has left
no clue about their wishes it can feel very
confusing.
BURIAL GROUND CIC
on the border of
Oxfordshire/Wiltshire
This can really increase the amount of
pain experienced especially when different family members do not agree what
their mum might have wanted or when
they plan it all as they think best and then
find an outline of wishes they did not
know existed which suggests something
quite different from what they arranged.
We were very proud to be the runners-up
in the South West region People’s awards
from the Natural Death Centre.