Wednesday’s Hearse & Grief Music | 4M #74
Welcome to the seventy-fourth edition of Morticians’ Monday Morning Mashup, 4M #74, where we’ll serve up bite-sized, easily-digestible nuggets of the deathcare news you need to crush conversations in the week ahead. Bon appetit!
C of E OKs AH & NOR for UK?
The leaders of the Church of England, to which about 47% of the English population belongs, recently met in London to address some of the church’s most “contentious” issues, including “the theological, practical and pastoral issues around alternatives to cremation and burial that are used in some countries,” per an article in The Guardian. Those alternatives include alkaline hydrolysis, the use of which gained momentum in the UK after Rev. Desmond Tutu’s aquamation, and natural organic reduction. Although water authorities have granted one Leeds company “consent to discharge” the effluent produced by AH, it’s unclear when the first so-called “water cremation” will take place, thanks in part to the activities of “industry pressure groups.” Interestingly, though, the Church of England seems to be more accepting of both AH and NOR. One of the leaders at the gathering admitted that some members may have qualms, but added, “The misgivings will be those who have misgivings about any form of disposals other than burial.”
Grief camps and choirs
Anyone who has ever lost a loved one would tell you that, although it happens in a myriad of forms and degrees, grief is real. Thankfully, new and interesting options for dealing with grief and loss are appearing all the time. One of the most unique is the grief choir at Texas Woman’s University. The new choir was the brainchild of two women with backgrounds in hospice care and music therapy, who believed in the healing power of music. Another option, grief camp, is designed especially for grieving children. This recent article shares the story of Sandy Bruno, whose husband died suddenly in 2009, leaving behind daughters aged 6 and 8. At the suggestion of the girls’ school counselor, Bruno sent them to Comfort Zone Camp, a nonprofit experience in Virginia that offers participants what Bruno’s daughters called a “camp bubble”: a place where everyone understood what they were going through.
You can drive this car any day of the week
In case you’ve never heard of it, Turo is a car-sharing company that functions much like a VRBO or AirBnB — everyday people or small businesses offer their personal or company vehicles to strangers to drive for an hourly or daily fee. If you live near Burbank, California, one of your rental options includes a 1950 Cadillac Custom Wagon allegedly owned and hosted on Turo by Wednesday Addams herself. Yes, for a low $13 per day you, too, can drive Wednesday’s tricked-out hearse — but be careful. If you “ride the clutch or grind the gears,” explains Wednesday, “our faithful driver, Lurch, will hunt you down.”
We’re glad she stuck to acting
If you watched the Super Bowl last night, you might have caught the new e.l.f. Cosmetics commercial featuring Jennifer Coolidge, one of the superstars of Legally Blonde and The White Lotus. As it turns out, Coolidge knows a lot about makeup — including how to apply it to the dead. The actress recently told Vogue that she studied beauty in an L.A. school with “a curriculum that included a mortuary makeup class. “I was not the best in class,” she told the magazine, “and who wants to be sort of mediocre at something if you pick that as a career?”
The secret’s out
It’s more than likely there is no course on search engine optimization (SEO) in mortuary school. But that’s ok, because the cool kids at MemoryShare know all about it — and they know how to improve yours … while at the same time making streaming services super simple for your staff. Get ready for a little mortuary math here (also probably not a class):
SEO + superior streaming services + super simplicity + safety and security =
The MemoryShare not-so-secret sauce for success
MemoryShare’s exclusive app makes streaming super easy; you can record your full service with the touch of a button. By sharing these streams with your community, you showcase your excellent service and create name recognition with the viewers. Aaaannnd that’s not all, folks. Because MemoryShare videos are embedded on your own website (and not on the site of a separate streaming provider) your site gets more views, which results in street cred with the search engines.
Two things funeral homes need in 2022 are visibility and increased call volume. MemoryShare provides both of these things as well as a team of REAL people you can talk to if you ever run into trouble. So what are you waiting for? Learn more about MemoryShare today!
