We had such a wonderful day for our very first training day – all of State of Grace funeral directors from each of the three branches, along with a few invited celebrants. We had the most incredible range of speakers!
We started the day with a mindfulness session taken by the lovely Steph Ikinofo – this gave us a grounding and gentle start to the day.
This was followed by a heartfelt session from Amanda Christian who runs groups for parents bereaved by suicide.Next up was Lorna Wood, Bereavement Coordinator of Starship who gave really helpful advice and information for helping bereaved children.
Most appropriately the next session was Deb Smith from the incredible Cloud Workshop – a free art workshop for any child experiencing bereavement. She led us in a practical workshop creating our very own Guardian Peg Dolls – clearly the crafting instinct emerged from us all as we got busy amidst much chatter.
Then it was time for our delicious lunch from Nicola at The Wardroom – yum!
Janet from the East Branch led us in a Thurible lighting training – this always creates a lot of stress when at a Requiem mass so it was great to be shown how to light this under calm circumstances and not with an entire congregation waiting for you! Thank you Janet!
Last speaker of the day was the effusive Jo Verheijen – First Training company offering first aid training in the workplace. You may think this is an odd thing for funeral directors to be learning (!) but in fact we have had incidents of people fainting etc at a funeral and need to know what to do! There was a great deal of laughter as Jo manhandled both Fran and the mannequin…
It was an inspirational day – great to do something together as a entire team, and great to learn so much in one day. SO great, in fact, that we are going to hold a much bigger training day mid-year, and open it up to others in the industry, to celebrants, to anyone who feels they would benefit from the day. Email us to register your interest, and keep an eye on this blog and our Facebook page for updates.
We are so grateful to everyone who came along to share their knowledge with us. We are also extremely grateful to the generous donors who provided treats for the gift bags given to each guest :
Weleda, Sharleen Greer with DoTerra oils, Karma Cola, Ethique, Kokako Coffee, Kolorex
