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President's Letter:
People want to prearrange
Carol Caunter
Carol Caunter, ICFA president for 2003-2004, who has 12 years of experience in the cemetery and funeral profession following 12 years of experience in the financial services industry, works for Tobias Funeral Home in Dayton, Ohio. She can be reached at carolcaunter@hotmail.com.
On a recent flight, I was reading "The Rebel Angels," volume one in Robertson Davies’ Cornish Trilogy. Written in 1981, the book starts with the death of a university professor and a friend’s comments on his funeral:
"Ellerman’s funeral was a sad affair, which is not as silly as it sounds, because I have known funerals of well-loved or brave people which were buoyant. But this funeral was without personal quality or grace. … People are said to be drifting away from religion, but few of them drift so far that when they die there is not a call for some kind of religious ceremony. Is it because mankind is naturally cautious? For whatever reason, we don’t like to part with a friend without some sort of show and too often it is a poor show. …
"He had been a man who liked a touch of style, and he had been hospitable. This affair would have dismayed him; he would have wanted things done better. … What would I have done if I had been in charge? I would have had Ellerman’s war medals, which were numerous and honourable, on display and I would have draped his doctor’s red gown and his hood over his coffin. These, as reminders of what he had been, of where his strengths had lain. …
"Ellerman had taught English literature, and he was an expert on Browning; might not somebody had read some passages from ‘A Grammarian’s Funeral?’ But such thoughts are idle; you are asking for theatricalism, grief must be meagre, and mean, and cheap – not in money of course, but in expression and invention."
As I was reading the above passage, what caught my attention was the line "we don’t like to part with a friend without some sort of show and too often it is a poor show." When you really get down to the basics of what we all do each and every day, we help people say goodbye. We help families part with a friend, a lover, a child, a husband, a wife, a father, a mother. We create the show. And I believe it is our responsibility to ensure that it is a good show.
This edition of your magazine focuses on prearranging, or the opening act of "the show" for families who choose the prearrangement option, one your association passionately believes families should have. In my role as a marketing executive over the years, I have been involved in numerous market research studies on our profession. All studies, without exception, show that families believe prearranging is a good idea. They do not use the words "preneed" and "prepay" or "prefund." These are our words. Families use the word "prearrange" and to them, it means planning and paying for the services they have selected. And these same families want to prearrange in the comfort of their home, at the funeral home, at the cemetery, through the mail or over the Internet.
Those of us who have helped a family prearrange know it is at that moment people truly give serious thought to how they want to be remembered. What were their accomplishments? What do they want people to say about them? One of the benefits of prearranging is that it gives families the opportunity to plan their show—THEIR way. And when their prearrangement goes at-need, they have hired us to produce the show and to deliver an Oscar-winning performance.
The ICFA devotes a large portion of its time and energy to developing educational seminars to help members better communicate to families the benefits of prearranging. The J. Asher Neel College of Sales & Marketing and the College of Funeral & Commemorative Services speak to this commitment. I have attended two ICFAU colleges. Each time, I listened to new ideas, had my thought processes challenged and took away a wealth of information. In addition, I developed a network of individuals I continue to stay in touch with to this day. Attendance at ICFA University was for me time well spent.
I am proud to be your president. More important, I am proud to be part of an association that constantly strives to raise the bar of professionalism to new levels, an association that passionately believes in prearranging.
Copyright ICFA 2003
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