Funeral offices and business meetings

Yesterday morning the monthly Radio Users Group took place, and there were thirty people present. It was the best turn-out for a good while, but I couldn't hang around for long afterwards as I had to get home and prepare for a funeral early afternoon.  The service was in Pidgeon's funeral chapel, and there was a similar number present to make their farewells to a man who'd died in his early sixties due to collateral damage from diabetes. I had no appetite for work when I returned home, apart from cooking supper. The first Tai Chi class of the new term left me feeling grateful for the good health and modest fitness I enjoy.

Today was the CBS Steering Group meeting, for which I have done a good deal of preparation this past few weeks, right down to early this morning, assembling at the crack of dawn an up to date detailed account itemising all the Terms & Conditions attached to a RadioNet subscription and use of equipment. Nobody needs to have all that stuff to refer to in separate documents if they are coming to it for the first time. Trouble is, those of us who've worked with the information for so long get used to shuffling pieces of paper - and this can try the patience of people of good will learning how the business works. Now it's done, and the document was something I could deliver when the meeting finished, an hour and a half after it should have done. 

A tour through the draft Constitution produced all sorts of discussion about how the future is meant to work with many more people involved. I wonder if any of the keen ones realise how much they'll be have to work at without any sense of the benefit of an organisation as well adapted to the conditions and needs of its users - there's just so much detail involved in everything RadioNet must do.

When I got home, there was an email from the Area Dean about yet another funeral next Wednesday. It co-incides with Fr Mark's final meeting as Area Dean as he hands over to colleague Bob Capper. I had to turn down a funeral request for today because of the Steering Group meeting which I couldn't miss. It's important to me to give as much support as I can to the full-timers. Their numbers keep on shrinking, but the number of families still wanting funeral with a minister for their loved ones doesn't diminish. It's no more than a holding operation. Sooner or later the churches must see the sense of training lay pastors to officiate at funerals and offer bereavement counselling when needed, the way the French Catholics do.