2013-04-30

Alternative Memorialising with Heinz

    A while ago Heinz launched the myHeinz site where you can make custom messages on Heinz bottles.  At the time I thought nothing of it and barely even noticed it, until someone recently had a rather amusing suggestion.  To use this as a way of memorialising the dead!

2013-04-26

Interviews Wanted!

    I am looking for people to participate in interviews for the blog!  If interested I explain everything in more detail below.

2013-04-24

Guest Post - Is Death Taboo?

    Recently I received a guest post from someone who has submitted a guest post in the past on their experiences with the hearse.

    This time they submitted a rather interesting post about the taboo of death, aggressively questioning the way and reason  society perceives death as taboo.  This post got me thinking, especially as the 'taboo' of death is directly relevant to my thesis.  So you can read their post and my reply below where we discuss whether or not death is really taboo.

2013-04-22

Event - Pinegrove Open Night reminder

    Pinegrove Memorial Park will be having an open evening at the end of this month.  Pinegrove is owned and operated by InvoCare, and in my experience they know how to hold a decent event.  So in theory it should be quite fun.

- When: 30th April (Tuesday) - 6pm
- Where: Kington St, Minchenbury.

Pinegrove events webpage:
http://www.pinegrovecrem.com.au/driver.asp?page=/our+services/our+events

Pinegrove Google Page (with contact info and address):
https://plus.google.com/115487533186623482454/about?gl=au&hl=en

    Hopefully I'll see some of you there!  Look for the person taking photos and chatting with staff to find me.

An~~

2013-04-19

Blog Update - Ethics Application

    I am a bit busy lately (to put it mildly) and haven't had time to write much for the blog, so I will do a quick updated and explain a few things going on with my honours thesis.

2013-04-15

Woronora Open Day 2013

    The Woronora open day was one of the best I have attended so far, what made it stand out was the focusing and mentality behind the open day.  It was held on the 13th of April (Saturday) 2013, and while the day was meant to go from 10am to 3pm I was there from 9:30am to 3:45pm.

2013-04-11

Undertakers Eating on Funerals

    A while ago I wrote this post on how to get fed for free if you're an undertaker.  Since then I have played the role of mourner more and thought I would share my perspectives on funeral staff joining mourners for food.

2013-04-08

Rookwood Cemetery Station - All Saints Church Canberra

    A while ago I visited the All Saints Church in Canberra which was originally Cemetery Station No.1 at Rookwood Cemetery in Sydney.  And finally, I have found time to put together a post about the trip!  This is mostly a picture post, I know it's been a while.

2013-04-06

Woronora Open Day

    I recently discovered that Woronora also has an open day, on the 13th of April no less.  Which is rather odd and surprising as none of my funeral contacts knew about it until I started asking about.  And there is nothing about it on the Woronora website.

    The best source of information was Emerald Creative, a site offering various funeral support for mourners, such as order of service booklets, music, and so on.  This is a site I mean to talk about in more detail another time (it really is such a good resource for mourners) but time is rare these days.

    The open day is organised as part of 'Heritage Week', it looks like it could be a fun day, and either way I will certainly be there.  But most interestingly is the government heritage page says there will be a Medieval Regiment display at 10:30 on.

When13th April (Saturday) - 10am to 3pm
CostFree.
Where: 121 Linden St, Sutherland.

More information:
http://heritage-week.govspace.gov.au/event/open-day-at-woronora-general-cemetery-crematorium/

~

2013-04-05

Event - Pinegrove Open Evening

     Pinegrove Memorial Park will be having an open evening of the crematorium this month, which could be good fun as my experience with InvoCare event have always been very good so far.  As uni is getting busy I will be making this the blog event for the month, roll a few things into one.

    There will be more details closer to the time as I know them.  If you follow the blog facebook page you can keep up to date with events.  Greg Bisset tends to also post things about various InvoCare events and functions for those interested.

When30th April (Tuesday) - 6pm
Cost: Free (most likely).
WhereKington St, Minchenbury.

Pinegrove events webpage:
http://www.pinegrovecrem.com.au/driver.asp?page=/our+services/our+events

Pinegrove Google Page (with contact info and address):
https://plus.google.com/115487533186623482454/about?gl=au&hl=en

An~

2013-04-04

Upright Burial

    The concept of burying coffins standing up (vertically rather than horizontally) is by no means a new one.  This is an older idea and one brought up every so often, but it is about time I gave my own personal thoughts on the matter in a short post.

2013-04-01

Hearse Month Wrap Up

    Here is a nice breakdown and summary of some of the posts over last month all about the hearse (in order of my most favorite to least favourite):

- The Hearse - Telling them apart -- 11th March 2013
    This is possibly the post I am most proud of in quite a while (despite the length), it hits all the objectives of the blog quite nicely and I felt was a good post overall.  Basically it is a detailed post on how to identify and distinguish various hearses; it looks at important aspects of the hearse in detail (with lots of photos).  So it's a great post for those who wish to understand the hearse better, or even the diversity of the Sydney funeral industry.



- Inside the Lady Anne Hearse -- 29th March 2013
    In this post I look at the hearse in detail, what it is like inside and how it works.  For this I use the Lady Anne Funerals hearse which they were gracious enough to let me take photos with as much as I wanted.



- Guest Post - Meeting the hearse -- 28th March 2013
    Another guest post from DC, in this they discuss their first experience with a hearse and the "dos" and "donts" of driving a hearse.



Possible reasons for diversity in the hearse -- 27th March 2013
    Here I look at a possible reason why the hearse's are so diverse and different in Sydney.



The Hearse - in the eyes of the funeral industry -- 15th March 2013
    In this post I explore how the funeral industry perceives the hearse; as in what funeral staff see and think of the hearse.  Their perspective is quite different to that of the public.



Symbolism and Significance of the Hearse -- 20th March 2013
    The hearse has a lot of symbolism and significance attached to it, in this post I explore some of that.



    Well I was quite impressed with how this month went, it was my first experiment with having a running theme for such a long time and I think it went well.  Some posts might have got become abstract, or even boring, but I had fun and proved the idea of a theme month is possible.

    If anything it worked better than my regular system, the start of the month was very busy but then the rest settled down and my blog basically ran itself for 70% of the month.  So this is something I will organise more of as uni continues to get busier.  Not next month but maybe the month afterwards.

An~~