984-464-0120 hello@funeralsnc.org

Summer 2020 Newsletter

 

Dying to Know?
P.O. Box 4262, Wilmington, NC 28406
Editor: Rebecca Taylor, e-mail

Summer, 2020

Introducing the Funeral Consumers Alliance North Carolina!

Six months ago, board members of the Funeral Consumers Alliance of Western Carolina, the Funeral Consumers Alliance of the Piedmont and the Funeral Consumers Alliance Coastal Carolina met in Asheville to discuss the issues and problems that each organization was encountering. Primary was inability to recruit board members and fresh leadership; secondary was a lack of funding to carry out a strong outreach and education program. It quickly became clear that alone each of our organizations was on the brink of collapsing as both the Charlotte and Raleigh chapters already have.

At the meeting in June, the group drafted a letter of merger for each of the three boards to sign as well as proposed bylaws for the new organization. In August, this same group signed a formal Plan of Merger to be taken to each organization at their official annual membership meeting.

Current Goals of the Funeral Consumers Alliance North Carolina

              • Statewide website
              • Statewide fundraising
              • Statewide newsletter (electronic)
              • Legislative watchdog (NC Legislature)
              • Statewide phone number and email account
              • Coverage of areas with heretofore little or no service
              • Informative speaking public programs available on request
              • Single price list for all NC funeral homes published on website
              • Recruit Board Members for the 2021-2023 openings

Board of Directors

OFFICERS – 2020-2021

Sara Williams, President — Graham, NC

Delyn Fritz, Vice President  — Wilmington, NC

Rebecca Taylor, Secretary — Wilmington, NC

Don Snook, Treasurer — Kure Beach, NC

DIRECTORS

Ed Hillman — Asheville, NC

Hank Williams — Graham, NC

Patricia Tweedy — Greensboro, NC

Kathryn Lairson — Greensboro, NC

Michael Palko —  Knightdale, NC

Linda Logan —  Hillsborough, NC

Please, please consider joining the Board! We meet via ZOOM about every other month. It’s a great group of friendly and energetic people who are dedicated to providing information and education about funerals planning.

NEW MEMBERS

Gerald Debenedette, Durham
Evelyn & Larry Santorini, Roan Mt.
Michael Palko, Knightdale
James & Ruth Gehr, Wilmington
JSarah Elaine DeAlmeida, Chapel Hill
Patrick McGrath, Winston-Salem
Martin & Faye Benjamin, Greensboro
Marie & Brian Kammerer, Hampstead
Linda Logan, Hillsborough
Jennifer Albright, Durham
Dr. Patricia Williams, Asheville

A Report from Joshua Slocum, Executive Director

As many of you know for the past five years, The FCA National office has worked with a coalition of consumer groups to research how funeral homes disclose their prices to consumers. This produced five reports supporting our request to reform the Funeral Rule. This team effort included the Consumer Federation of America, Consumer Reports, Consumer Checkbook, and other national consumer advocacy groups. All of them submitted comments to the FTC asking for important reforms. If we are successful, the reformed Rule will better protect grieving people.

Our primary “ask” is to mandate that funeral homes place their price lists prominently on their websites. The cost-comparison surveys each chapter produces and offers to the public – one of the most effective things the chapters do – can be completed in a fraction of the time if we win this issue.

Summary of Our Requests
We are currently asking the Federal Trade Commission to:

 

  • Require funeral homes to put their General Price Lists (GPL) on their websites.
  • Require funeral homes to include the actual cost of cremation (from a third-party crematory) within the funeral home’s advertised price for cremation services.
  • Rewrite the embalming disclosure (this mandatory disclosure must appear on each funeral home’s General Price List) to make clear that embalming is not legally required for a viewing of the body.
  • Eliminate the “non-deductible” fee for the basic services of funeral director and staff; the one fee consumers may not decline.
  • Eliminate the Funeral Rule Offender Program. This program to re-educate funeral homes who fail undercover shopping tests by the FTC is run by the National Funeral Directors Association, which is a conflict of interest. The terms of the program also keep the names of scofflaw funeral homes out of the FTC’s press releases. We believe the public has a right to know.
  • Thoroughly investigate cemetery sales practices that we believe make the case for bringing cemeteries under the Funeral Rule.

It will be a year before we hear from the FTC about whether, or what, changes to the Rule they intend to make. Two of the five FTC Commissioners have been vocal allies in this effort so far. A huge thank you to the hundreds of FCA members nationwide who took time to submit their comments to the FTC during the review period. We truly believe that Washington is listening to us and to the needs of grieving families.

Read the entire submission to the Federal Trade Commission.

Register today for our first free virtual conference

September 26-27, 2020!

We’re pleased to offer two days of free programming, open to all. Below you’ll find details and registration links. On Saturday and Sunday we’ll start with live presentations on Zoom (registration required for each session). Then we’ll be posting links to per-recorded presentations you can watch at any time, no registration required.

TIP—If you don’t already have a free Zoom account, head over to zoom and set one up ahead of time. Zoom will require you to download its free video application which will launch and display the video when you join the Zoom keynote sessions. Doing this ahead of time will ensure a smooth experience.

Scroll down this page for details. Registration links to sign up for the live Zoom sessions appear underneath with each presentation description.

Be sure to save the registration confirmation email from Zoom. You will need the link and the password in that email to join your live presentation!

Saturday, September 26

1 pm Eastern/10 am Pacific

Live Keynote Opening—FCA Executive Director Josh Slocum

‘A turning point in consumer protection’

This year hundreds of consumers, FCA members, and organizations asked the Federal Trade Commission to update the Funeral Rule. Our big ask? Requiring funeral homes to put their prices online. As the pandemic has shown, online price and service information is crucial. Josh Slocum will highlight the changes we’ve asked the FTC to make, and discuss the possible FTC decision and when it will come.

REGISTRATION: Click here to register for this session (the link will take you to Zoom’s registration page).

3 pm Eastern/12 pm Pacific

Live presentation—Sarah Jane Lambring, FCA of North Texas, FCA national board

Distance Grieving: Ritual and Connection When We Can’t Be There in Person

Explore how funeral homes are tackling pandemic restrictions, discover unique solutions families have implemented, and discuss the successes and failures of mourning at a distance.

REGISTRATION: Click here to register for this live presentation (the link will take you to Zoom’s registration page).

Pre-Recorded Presentations (video links will be posted Saturday, September 26)
~no registration required for pre-recorded presentations~

The Grief Dialogues: Two short plays looking at the end of life
“Honoring Choices” takes a serious tone. “Dead Giveaway” is funny.
They’re two sides of the same experience, aren’t they?

Presenter: Playwright Elizabeth Coplan, past-president of Peoples Memorial Association

Fundraising 101—A one-year, direct mail plan with templates for FCA affiliate groups.
Presenter: Josh Slocum

 

 

Fundraising 102—Boosting your fundraising with email and social media.

Presenter: Nora Menkin, Executive Director, Peoples Memorial Association

 

 

Making your newsletter make more money!—a guide for FCA affiliates to produce a shorter, snappier newsletter that produces more donations for your work.

Presenter: Ruth Bennett, FCA national board and past-president

Sunday, September 27

1 pm Eastern/10 am Pacific

Featured Keynote—Dr. Kami Fletcher, Associate Professor of History, Albright College

African American Undertaking: History, Burial Rights and Deathwork

Specifically discussing her research about the earliest African American undertakers in Baltimore, Dr. Fletcher provides a history of African American undertaking and undertakers. Focusing on the rise of the Reconstruction-Era African American undertaker, Dr. Fletcher will show how race, racism and the autonomous black cemetery led to early 20th-century African American undertaking as a vehicle for wealth building and communal self-help. The talk will put special emphasis on how Black women undertakers used newspapers to subvert patriarchy and gender norms in order to thrive in death work that was dominated by men.

REGISTRATION: Click here to register for this live presentation (the link will take you to Zoom’s registration page).

SPECIAL OFFER—Dr. Fletcher and the University Press of Mississippi have generously arranged a 30% discount for conference attendees on the anthology Till Death Do Us Part American Ethnic Cemeteries as Borders Uncrossed. Click here for a flyer with details.

Pre-Recorded Presentations (video links will be posted Sunday, September 27
~no registration required for pre-recorded presentations~

Essential Basics: how to complete a funeral cost-comparison survey. The cost-comparison survey is the most useful and compelling tool we offer members and the public.

Presenter: Ginny Farney, FCA of Greater Kansas City

 

The Urge to Merge: how three struggling FCA groups combined into one stronger, statewide organization.

Presenters: Sara Williams (pictured) and Rebecca Taylor, FCA of North Carolina

 

7 Ways to Die with Dementia: Some Thoughts about Advance Directives

Presenter: Lamar Hankins, FCA of San Antonio, past-president FCA national

 

 

Going to the capital: how to lobby your state’s regulatory agencies and lawmakers.

Presenter: Jim Bates, FCA of North Texas

 

Tell everyone in town: how to get your FCA’s best speaker invited to present at allied organizations

Presenter: Nancy Petersen, FCA of Greater Kansas City

 

 

 

Planning Resources on the Web

HELPFUL CHECKLISTS AND PLANNING DOCUMENTS

This particular “genre” has proliferated in the last few years and there are many, many versions available at online bookstores. These are the best I’ve found.

Final Wishes: Estate Planning • Legal Documents • Personal Wishes & Instructions • Household and Online Accounts Simple Start Guides.

This checklist estate planner gathers all your vital information in one place. Record the location of legal documents such as your will, your living will, names and addresses of friends and relatives, property deeds, insurance policies, checking and savings accounts, credit and debit cards, retirement savings in IRAs and 401Ks and pensions, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, safe deposit box keys and contents, your mortgage and other loans’ paperwork, your vehicles and their titles, business licenses and other documents for sole proprietors, your preferences about organ donation, instructions for burial or cremation and more.

ABA/AARP Checklist for My Family: A Guide to My History, Financial Plans and Final Wishes by Sally Balch Hurme. American Bar Association.

This book guides you through the process of gathering in one place your finances, legal documents, online accounts, wishes about medical care, and more. Plus it tells you what you need, why you need it, what’s missing, and where to get it. This book is also a gift to your loved ones. It spares them stressful decisions and needless frustrations when you’re ill or upon your death. And it presents them with your legacy, by providing specific knowledge of family history and recollections about your life, interests, and accomplishments. Whether you choose to gather this critical information in the book itself or through the forms available free online, you can easily customize and organize your information.

Get It Together: Organize Your Records So Your Family Won’t Have To by Melanie Cullen and Shae Irving J.D. NOLO, paperback, spiral bound, e-book. (Ninth Edition to be released September, 2020)

Provides a complete system for structuring and organizing your information and documents into a records binder. For each topic, you will find step-by-step instructions, helpful content, and rich resources. Do your loved ones know where to find your life insurance policies, online banking passwords, real estate deeds, or even your will? The updated 9th edition is reorganized to make it easier to get started. All forms are downloadable through a link printed in the book.

 

Five Wishes

One of the most popular documents we hand out at our group presentations comes from the people at Aging with Dignity. An easy-to-use legal advance directive

document writte

n in everyday language. It helps all adults, regardless of age or health, to consider and document how they want to be cared for at the end of life.

Also available is Five Wishes Online which allows you to complete the Five Wishes advance directive document onscreen in English. You are also able to print it out and complete it by hand in any of 29 languages after entering a

name and birth date. With this electronic version, you can purchase any number of documents, based on y

our needs.

And now available is Conversation Guide for Individuals and Families which helps you introduce and navigate advance care planning discussions wit

h your loved ones, learn how to document your choices, and what to do after you’ve had the conversation. A companion to the Five Wishes advance directive document, the Conversation Guide includes detailed information on completing each section of Five Wishes recommendations about how to discuss it with your doctor, and answers to the most frequently asked questions about having these important conversations using Five Wishes. It even includes suggested words and phrases you can use to start these conversations.

The Conversation Guide for Individuals and Families covers:

  • Getting the Conversation Started
  • Talking about Your Wishes
  • Next Steps – what to do after you have completed Five Wishes
  • Talking with your Doctor about Five Wishes
  • Answers to Questions about Five Wishes

Each Item from Aging with Dignity is available for $5.00 at the web site

Newly Published!

Dear Life by Rachel Clarke. Little, Brown, March, 2020.

As a specialist in palliative medicine, Dr Rachel Clarke chooses to inhabit a place many people would find too tragic to contemplate. Every day she tries to bring care and comfort to those reaching the end of their lives and to help make dying more bearable.

Rachel’s training was put to the test in 2017 when her beloved GP father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She learned that nothing – even the best palliative care – can sugar-coat the pain of losing someone you love.
And yet, she argues, in a hospice there is more of what matters in life – more love, more strength, more kindness, more joy, more tenderness, more grace, more compassion – than you could ever imagine. For if there is a difference between people who know they are dying and the rest of us, it is simply this: that the terminally ill know their time is running out, while we live as though we have all the time in the world.

Dear Life is a book about the vital importance of human connection, by the doctor we would all want by our sides at a time of crisis. It is a love letter – to a father, to a profession, to life itself.

Rachel Clarke is a current NHS doctor and former television journalist who cares passionately about standing up for her patients and the NHS. She originally read Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford University before making current affairs documentaries about subjects as diverse as the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Al Qaeda and the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She retrained as a doctor in her late twenties, graduating in 2009. She now works in palliative medicine, believing that helping patients at the end of life experience the best quality life possible is priceless. Rachel lives in Oxford with her husband and two children.

 

THANK YOU FOR YOUR DONATION!

                • James & Teresa Skinner, Myrtle Beach
                • William Smith, Cherokee
                • D.W. & B.M. Monk, Brevard
                • Frank Westmoreland, Lexington
                • Michael & Susan Dolcimascolo, Waynesville
                • Eleanor Sloane, Hendersonville
                • Carol Cothern, Greensboro
                • W.D. & C.B. Mullins, Greensboro
                • Melissa & Michael Davis, Weaverville
                • Virginia Koranek & Danny Wyatt, Marshall
                • David Deal & Millie Ellis-Deal, Valdese
                • Roger Raasch, King
                • Sam & Barbara Arnett, New Bern
                • Rev. Michelle Smith, Asheville
                • Jean Luce, Asheville
                • Katherine Carroll, Southport
                • Barbara McClure, Laurinburg
                • William Bauer, Four Oaks
                • Theresa Catalano, Tryon
                • Peter & Nancy Peiffer, Greensboro
                • Robert & Shirley Richardson, Wilmington
                • Ann Hass, Greensboro
                • Jewell Ann Diehn, Ravenna, OH
                • Howard Martin & Carol Guzek, Burnsville
                • Gilbert & Joyce Johnson, Burnsville
                • Harriet & Robert Bartnick, Cary
                • Natalie & Michael Rousch, Wilmington
                • Joan McCarron, Greensboro
                • Russell & Camilla Banks, High Point
                • Harry & Mary Walker, Columbus
                • R.E. & E.A. Spellerberg, Wilmington
                • Luis Sanchez, Clemmon
                • April Wreath, Pleasant Garden
                • Joseph & Wendy Bell, Asheville
                • Susan Sasser, Cedar Mountain
                • Newsom Williams, New Bern
                • James Fountain, Wilmington
                • Patrick McGraw, Winston-Salem
                • Patrick T & Amy McGrath, Winston-Salem
                • Sarah & Arthur DeAlmeida, Chapel Hill
                • Mary E. Scharf, Ocean Isle Beach
                • Virginia & George Brendlen, Durham
                • Alan Jackson & Rachel Belanger, New Market, MD
                • Nancy Rosebaugh & Charles Nordan, Hillsborough
                • John Snell & Valorie Speegle-Snell, Black Mountain
                • Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Asheville

 

To Join FCANC

You pay only a one time membership fee! That puts you on our mailing list, pretty much forever. As a member you will receive two newsletters a year and will be eligible to serve on volunteer projects as well as on the Board of Directors.

You may pay through the PayPal button on our website, or mail checks directly to the address below.

FCA North Carolina

P.O. Box 4262

Wilmington, NC 28406

_______ Enclosed is my tax deductible membership of $________________

_______ I would like to volunteer my time. Please give me a call at _______________________

_______ I would like to serve on the Board of Directors. Please call me at __________________

Name:_________________________________________________________________________

Spouse or Significant Other: _______________________________________________________

Street Address___________________________________________________________________

City, State, Zip: __________________________________________________________________

Phone number: ____________________ e-mail address:­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­___________________________

                                                                        2nd e-mail address:___________________________

 

To Donate to FCANC

When you join FCANC pay only a one time membership fee. However, we do ask for donations to fund our ongoing expenses for outreach programs and projects. Thank you in advance for your continued support of our growing organization. You may now make donations in two ways:

Either through the PayPal button on our website, or mail checks directly to the address below.

MAIL TO: FCA North Carolina

P.O. Box 4262

Wilmington, NC 28406

_______ Enclosed is my tax deductible contribution of $________________

_______ I would like to volunteer my time. Please give me a call at ______________________

_______ I would like to serve on the Board of Directors. Please call me at __________________

Name:__________________________________________________________________________

Street Address_____________________________________________________________________

City, State, Zip: ____________________________________________________________________

Phone number: ____________________ e-mail address:­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________________________

Don’t Forget – You can pay for your membership or donate to Funeral Consumers Alliance North Carolina via the Donate button on our website!