Joyful Memorials & Funerals

10/11/2025

Create a Life Box of your final wishes and essential end of life information

Life Box is an emergency document box designed to hold pre and post death documents in one secure, accessible place that can be easily located by emergency personnel and carers.
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Alison Miller, founder of a business named Life Box Australia, was guest speaker at the October meeting of the Bairnsdale

10/11/2025

Some special touches for a much loved Grandma who loved spiders!

Family wore a beautiful assortment of spider brooches and earrings in her honour.

Big thanks to my local community for supporting me with loan of a spider stamp for family hands and spider cut outs to add to the beautiful flowers.

It is these simple gestures that can make a funeral highly personalised - plus the beautiful ceremony words!

03/11/2025

Proposal for a new cemetery in Sydney’s north west

19/10/2025

Isn’t this heart-warming? So important to have special visitors for patients and the caring team

17/10/2025

A well written funeral or death notice is one of the last caring and thoughtful takes you can do for a loved one. It should give details of birth and death dates, and immediate family. But it should also add descriptors that capture elements of their life and personality.

When I read funeral notices I sometimes wish I had known the person described with love and warmth by their next of kin.

Funeral Notices are not simply about announcing a death, but give some family history for future generations, and also to the many people whose own lives have crossed paths with the deceased.

We are never know how many lives a person has interacted with in some way, and by adding expressive descriptors, you can reach more people.

I also love that this notice includes a family contact and an RSVP - which helps with the practical arrangements like catering.

11/10/2025

Very sad to read this news this morning - many people have been assisted by the Centre for Digestive Diseases at Five Dock.

Condolences to his family, friends and colleagues

08/10/2025

Rookwood’s lack of burial space.

Loved ones have been placed in temporary spots, with plots opening for emergencies only.

25/09/2025

Food for thought! Have a listen to this podcast



https://www.facebook.com/share/p/14EjZMFn73W/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Hear Sarah's interview with Bronnie Ware.

Bronnie was living alone in the country and recovering from burnout when she wrote a blog post reflecting on her eight years as a palliative carer and the epiphanies patients shared with her as they faced death.

It was read by millions and became the basis of her best-selling book, The Top 5 Regrets of the Dying.

The lessons Bronnie learnt from her dying patients also helped her confront some darker elements of her childhood and eventually find peace:

https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/conversations/bronnie-wares-top-five-regrets-of-the-dying/105797006

19/09/2025

This UK article is about the banning of placement of wreaths on the floor INSIDE a chapel due to OHS. Has the world gone mad? Surely there is a simple solution to this (place wreath in small device that collects moisture?)

This is like some chapels banning the use of a candle indoors.

More bans and restrictions will see a further growth in direct cremations and families opting to have their own memorial service, dinner or gathering - but is this sufficient to assist the grief process of the living?

A funeral celebrant has hit out at the policy change

10/09/2025

It’s time to get creative when it comes to funeral and memorial locations - I have officiated services at RSL and community clubs, private and public gardens, chapels, restaurants, pubs, churches, and many more spaces. Remember to plan for the weather, accessibility and parking.

Where do you want your funeral to be held?

With Sydney grappling with the need for more burial plots, the city's funeral industry is also presented with a new problem — a lack of open-air funeral venues.

09/09/2025

Using cremated ashes in artwork. There are so many ways to store or use ashes - in an urn, jewellery, fireworks, the garden, at sea and much more. This article talks about using them in artwork
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