## **– Cofn Club Colchester Registered Charity 1182860 Annual Report 2020/21** 

Coffin Clubs help people to reclaim a participatory relationship with death and build strong, supportive communities where people can have frank conversations and reflect on their future with camaraderie. We empower people and help them understand their choices and options for low-cost funeral planning. 

Coffin Club UK is based on a model that has successfully run in New Zealand for a number of years. It is for elderly people, people who are terminally ill, or their carer’s, and for anyone interested to come and work out their funeral wish-list, plan and cost their funeral and if they wish, assemble and personalise their own coffin! 

Coffin Club Colchester Registered Charity 1182860 is affiliated with, although financially separate from, Coffin Club UK. As such it pays an annual membership fee, in return for which it receives support and advice from Coffin Club UK whose Patron is the actress, Miriam Margolyes. It seeks to gain its own independent financial support in order to run a club in Colchester thus widening the impact. We are the first Coffin Club in Essex! 

Coffin Club Colchester aims to run its free 6-week courses in Spring and Autumn each year mirroring its successful Autumn 2019 course when we had 13 participants, two of whom decorated their own coffins!  The attendees enjoyed the talks, Q & A and discussion each week: 

Week 1 – Manager of the Local Crematorium 

Week 2 – Educator from the Local Hospice 

Week 3 – Local Solicitor 

Week 4 – Local Independent family run Funeral Director 

Week 5 – Organ & Body Donation 

Week 6 – ‘ _How to dispose of a body; a dead interesting talk’_ – Local Humanist Celebrant 

Coffin Club Colchester has its own website www.cofnclubcolchester.co.uk, and a social media presence across the platforms of Facebook and Twitter. Coffin Club Colchester can supply low carbon footprint, eco- friendly, flatpacked coffins, which we import from the Netherlands company ‘Coffin in a Box’ which conform to all EU Standards and have been well received. 

Coffin Club Colchester was very kindly given a donation of £400 by the _Wakeham Trust_ charity, for which we are very grateful. 



Sadly, both our Spring and Autumn 2020 courses were unable to take place due to the Covid-19 lockdown and the global pandemic.  At the time of writing this report Coffin Club Colchester has had to cancel the Spring 2021 course but we are hopeful of running our Autumn 2021 course. 

During lockdown, Jenny Edwards, Trustee undertook online training with Quaker Social Action of which the ‘Down to Earth’ project run the only helpline supporting people in or at risk of funeral poverty* and take the lead on the ‘Fair Funerals Campaign’. 

The three courses were titled: 

1. Funeral Expenses Payment 

2. Making Charity Applications and Raising Money for Funeral Costs 

3. Raising Money for Funeral Costs 

Following successful completion, Coffin Club Colchester this year aims (alongside their Autumn course) to offer a free (non-financial) service to individuals and families at risk of funeral poverty by supporting people in their applications for government monies and/or helping them to apply for grants from charitable bodies to alleviate their financial burden and where appropriate take councils to task over their statutory duties for public health funerals. 

*funeral poverty is where the price of a funeral is beyond a person's ability to pay 



**Accounts for Cofn Club Colchester Registered Charity: 1182860 from 6th April 2020 – 5th April 2021** 

## **Opening Balance £1019** 

## **Receipts and Payments** 

|Receipts|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|Unrestricted funds to||||Total|
|funds to|||||
|The nearest £||||the|
|nearest £|||||
|‘Start Up’ fund pledged by Trustees||£    0||£    0|
|Donations|£  50||£  50||
|Grants||£400||£400|
|Cofns||£    0||£    0|
|Gift Aid|£  87||£  87||
|Other income||£  70||£  70|
||||Total to 5thApril 2021|**£607**|
|Payments|||||
|Charity PLI|£     0||£    0||
|Afliations|£  60||£  60||
|Speakers Expenses||£    0||£    0|
|Advertising|£    0||£    0||
|Cofns||£220||£220|
|Training|£112||£112||
|Sundries|£  22||£  22||
||||Total to 5thApril 2021|**£414**|
|**Opening Balance**|**£1019**||||
|Total Receipts||£  607|||
|Less payment||£  414|||
|Remaining|**£1212**||||