– Cofn Club Colchester Registered Charity 1182860 Annual Report 2021/22
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 through which it receives support and advice and 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 enjoy talks, Q & A and discussion about elements of their ‘Funeral Wish List’ each week:
Week 1 – ‘There’s more than one choice for your final farewell’ course overview
Week 2 – Ambassador from the Local Hospice
Week 3 – Manager of the Local Crematorium
Week 4 – Local Independent family run Funeral Director
Week 5 – Organ & Body Donation
Week 6 – Local Solicitor
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.
During this annual reporting year, Coffin Club Colchester was very kindly given a grant of £1870 by the Tudwick Foundation and £500 by the Hindu Cultural and Heritage Centre in Clacton, for which we are very grateful. We also received several donations totalling £720 from our course
participants (whom we call ‘Clubbers’) as well as a family whom we supported to organise an uplifting and personal ‘Celebration of Life’ service for their loved one in a beautiful venue following a local direct cremation.
As the world emerged from lockdown and the human cost of the pandemic, the global conversation around death, dying and end of life planning saw more individuals open up to the idea of attending a Coffin Club Colchester course and we were able to run our Autumn 2021 course and are currently in the midst of our Spring course 2022.
We are also working towards ‘Dying Matters Awareness Week – 3[rd] to 5[th] May 2022’ and have secured Liz Rothschild performing her one woman shows ‘Outside the Box – A Live Show about Death’ and ‘Outside the Box – Everyday Stories of Death, Bereavement & Life’ for two nights at the Headgate Theatre, Colchester. We will also be running a ‘Create a Memory on Sailing Barge May’ creative workshop in collaboration with the Bread & Roses Barge funded by a grant from Colchester Catalyst as well as a Death Café at St Helena Hospice.
Coffin Club Colchester offers 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.
Coffin Club is an active member of both Compassionate Communities and the Tendring Older Persons Forum and have utilised services and networking opportunities through Community Voluntary Services Tendring and Community 360. Wendy Johnson who along with friends Jenny Edwards and Beth Hatwell set up Coffin Club Colchester and was an inaugural Trustee retired in April at our AGM and Josh Price kindly stepped in to become our new Trustee. Happily, we will still have Wendy involved as chief tea maker and a Coffin Club Colchester Ambassador!
Coffin Club Colchester looks forward to continuing to open up the once taboo subject of death and dying, and giving a voice to the merits of having those conversations with your loved ones and encouraging healthy debate about various elements of our comprehensive ‘Funeral Wish List’.
*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 2021 – 5th April 2022
Opening Balance £1212
Receipts and Payments
Receipts
Unrestricted funds to funds to The nearest £ nearest £
Total the
| ‘Start Up’ fund pledged by Trustees | ‘Start Up’ fund pledged by Trustees | £ 0 | £ 0 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Donations | £720 | £720 | ||
| Grants | £2370 | £2370 | ||
| Cofns | £ 0 | £ 0 | ||
| Gift Aid | £ 0 | £ 0 | ||
| Other income | £ 14 | £ 14 | ||
| Total to 5thApril 2022 | £3104 | |||
| Payments | ||||
| Charity PLI | £ 123 | £ 123 | ||
| Afliations | £ 60 | £ 60 | ||
| Speakers Expenses | £ 0 | £ 0 | ||
| Advertising | £119 | £ 119 | ||
| Cofns | £319 | £319 | ||
| Training | £ 0 | £ 0 | ||
| Sundries | £ 16 | £ 16 | ||
| Total to 5thApril 2022 | £637 | |||
| Opening Balance | £1212 | |||
| Total Receipts | £3104 | |||
| Less payments | £ 637 | |||
| Remaining | £3679 |