Funeral Seminar

Last weekend I led a seminar on the leading of funerals. ANd have been meaning to reflect on it here since Sunday.

Overall I think it went well. WE had enough time to talk about the items on the agenda and still allow the discussion to wander a bit, but not so much that it felt like needing to fill up empty space. With a larger group it would be more difficult to cover all the same material (although of course a different process would be needed).

There were 8 participants and myself. This is a good size for whole group discussion, and was big enough that we could break in to 2 groups for the role play activity (around meeting with the family). Said role play activity appeared to have been a hit as one group really got into playing their parts.

If doing it again I would try to devise more ways to have people "test out" parts. Really most of the time was discussion with the family visit being the only really "hands on" part of the weekend. And there is the possibility of doing it again. ONe person from neighbouring city on the lake had to cancel and expressed a willingness to arrange for me to do the same weekend in that city sometime, also the event was apparently discussed at the last Conference Executive meeting as the sort of thing Conference could/should maybe help happen in variuos places (pay for travel etc. to get leadership moving around). TIme will tell. BUt I think it was a good event to try, and a good weekend to experience.

Besides, it won't look half-bad on a resume someday.