– Cofn Club Colchester Registered Charity 1182860 Annual Report 2022/23
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 – Lawyer specialising in End-of-life administrative planning including Wills, Probate, Advance Directives, Enduring Power of Attorney etc
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, flat-packed 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 £500 by the Grassroots charity, for which we are very grateful. We also received several donations totalling £180 including one from the Parkinson’s Carers group, Clacton for whom we gave a talk, two kind donations from a Dr C C K**n, our Autumn 2022 course participants (whom we call ‘Clubbers’) as well as our own family members and we are very grateful for Matthew Edwards and Wendy Johnson’s continuing support in providing the refreshments for our courses.
As the world emerged from lockdown and the human cost of the pandemic was palpable - 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. Our Spring course 2022 went ahead for the last time in our original venue (The Old Gladstone Road Chapel, Colchester) as did our Autumn 2022 course in our new venue of Community360, Winsley’s House, High Street, Colchester.
We enabled several events during ‘Dying Matters Awareness Week – 3[rd] to 5[th] May 2022’ - Liz Rothschild performed 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 also ran 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 crowdfund or 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 Colchester is an active member of both Compassionate Communities Tendring and the Tendring Older Persons Forum and have utilised services and networking opportunities through Community Voluntary Services Tendring and Community 360. Jenny Edwards, Beth Hatwell and Josh Price (the current Trustees of Coffin Club Colchester) are all happy to stand again at the AGM scheduled for 12th April 2023.
Coffin Club Colchester looks forward to continuing to open up the once taboo subject of death and dying, 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 2022 – 5 th April 2023
Opening Balance £3679
Receipts and Payments
Receipts
| Unrestricted funds to | Total funds to | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The nearest £ | the nearest £ | |||
| ‘Start Up’ fund pledged by | Trustees | £ 0 | £ 0 | |
| Donatons | £ 180 | £ 180 | ||
| Grants | £ 500 | £ 500 | ||
| Cofns | £ 0 | £ 0 | ||
| Gif Aid | £ 180 | £ 0 | ||
| Other income | £ 109 | £ 109 | ||
| Total to 5thApril 2023 | £ 969 | |||
| Payments | ||||
| Charity PLI | £ 123 | £ 123 | ||
| Afliatons | £ 10 | £ 10 | ||
| Speakers Expenses | £ 163 | £ 163 | ||
| Advertsing (incl. website) | £ 1233 | £1233 | ||
| Cofns | £ 0 | £ 0 | ||
| Training (incl. room hire) | £ 340 | £ 340 | ||
| Sundries | £ 48 | £ 48 | ||
| Total to 5thApril 2023 | £1917 | |||
| Opening Balance | £3679 | |||
| Total Receipts | £ 969 | |||
| Less payments | £1917 | |||
| Remaining | £2731 |