Josh Slocum of Funeral Consumers Alliance is on 60 Minutes tonight!

Josh Slocum, Executive Director of the Funeral Consumers Alliance, the national organization of which we’re a chapter, will be featured on 60 Minutes tonight.  He’ll be interviewed by Anderson Cooper in a segment on the abuses rampant in the cemetery business.

Josh informs us that this segment was actually filmed about a year ago. Tonight’s 60 Minutes actually runs for 120 minutes, and Josh will be featured during the second hour, which starts at 8:00 pm.

Be sure to tune in – Josh is a dynamic and knowledgeable speaker, and this program is great news for the FCA and for funeral consumers everywhere.

We’re back, and we’ll be better than ever

We’re back! Actually, the Memorial Society of the Hudson-Mohawk Region never really went away, but we’ve been keeping a low profile over the past year. There have been a variety of reasons, but we’re back on track and gearing up for the future.

The Funeral Consumers Alliance, the national organization of which we’re an affiliate, is alive and well, and our cause is as vitally important as ever. Our Capital Region chapter has lost momentum, but we still have a functioning five-member Board.  We’ve hired a new Administrator, Julie Reynolds, and Julie Lomoe, who has served as Administrator for the past several years, is training her and assisting with the transition.

Once the transfer of duties is complete, Julie L will be moving onto the Board. (Yes, we realize having two Julies sharing the work is a little confusing. Neither of us has a preferred nickname, so we’re just going by Julie L and Julie R. But for now, our members can deal with either of us, and you’ll only have to remember one name.)

You may well have a few questions. Here are some answers:

Q: Am I still a member? I haven’t heard from the Memorial Society in a while.

A: We offer lifetime memberships with no renewal fee, so if you received the Fall 2010 newsletter, you’re still a member. (We didn’t publish a newsletter in 2011.) If you didn’t receive one and you want to verify that you’re still a member, e-mail us at memsoc1@gmail.com or telephone (518) 465-9664 and leave a message. Someone will get back to you. Be sure to notify us if your address and contact information have changed within the past couple of years so that we can keep our data base current.

Q: I contacted you about (membership, a donation, whether my check cleared, etc.) and I never heard back. What’s going on?

A: If you have old unfinished business and never heard back from us, please contact us again. We apologize for any oversights or omissions, and we’ll do our best to address your concerns promptly.

Q: Will the Memorial Society survive? Is it still a viable organization?

A: Absolutely. We have a functioning Board and enough funds to squeak through until our next fundraising drive in the fall. Our new Administrator, Julie Reynolds, has a great deal of business expertise and the organizational skills we need to move forward. Note from Julie Lomoe: As Administrator, I was feeling burned out – I love writing, creating and community outreach, but although I’ve done a great deal of detailed administrative work in the past, it’s no longer my forte. Julie R and I enjoy working together, and with our complementary skill sets, I think we’ll be able to make the Memorial Society stronger than ever.

Q: How can I help?

A: That’s easy. Become involved! We need new Board members and volunteers. And send money! We promise to deposit your checks promptly, and this way you can help insure that we make it through this year and beyond.

Thanks for your interest and support, and we look forward to hearing from you.

 

 

Annual Meeting this Sunday, November 14

Please join us at our Annual Meeting this Sunday, November 14th, at 2 p.m. at the East Greenbush Community Library.

We will have a Round Table Discussion on the topic “What do Funeral Consumers Need?”  There will be a brief business meeting, and ample time for discussion, questions and socializing. The meeting is free and open to all, so bring family and friends. We look forward to seeing you there.

We’re always looking for volunteers, and you can learn more about volunteer opportunities at the meeting. We will also discuss making membership more accessible by lowering the suggested donation and creating a basic five-year membership for everyone under age 70. This would not affect current members, whose lifetime memberships would remain in effect.

Free copies of our current Funeral, Cremation and Cemetery Cost Survey will be available, along with Planning Forms and other handouts.

Directions:

The library has ample parking and is handicapped-accessible.  It’s conveniently located close to Exit 9 of Interstate 90. The address is 10 Community Way. Coming from the west, take I-90 East to Exit 9.  At the end of the exit, turn right onto Route 4 South. Proceed 0.4 mile to the traffic light, and turn left onto Route 151 East (Luther Road). Proceed 0.1 mile to the traffic light, and turn right onto Michael Road. Then make an immediate right onto Community Way. The library is the first building on the right. Our meeting room is through the first doors on your left.

We hope to see you this Sunday!

How FCA Affiliates can help: a personal story of loss and healing

Funeral arrangements and memorial services can be meaningful, healing experiences even when costs are kept low, and membership in an affiliate of the Funeral Consumers Alliance can help families cope with their loss while keeping both stress and expense at a minimum. I wrote this article for the fall 2008 newsletter of the Memorial Society of the Hudson-Mohawk Region, and I’m reprinting it here verbatim:

Down by the Riverside: A Personal Account of Loss and Healing

In late August, my son-in-law died unexpectedly at the age of 42, leaving behind my daughter and two young granddaughters. Although I’ve been Administrator for the Memorial Society of the Hudson-Mohawk Region for several years, I’ve never before had so vivid and personal a reminder of the value of the Memorial Society and of its parent organization, the Funeral Consumers Alliance.

Another Affiliate Helps Out

My son-in-law had done no advance funeral planning. The family lived in Woodstock, just over an hour from our home but outside the range of the providers the Memorial Society contracts with. We brought our daughter and the girls up to stay with us immediately, and got to work making arrangements the next morning. I found my copy of the FCA list of chapters and called the number for the Mid-Hudson Memorial Society in Poughkeepsie.

A volunteer answered the phone on the third ring and gave me the name of their participating provider in Kingston. I called, got his answering service, and he called me back within 10 minutes. He was extremely helpful and informative. We had everything arranged in under an hour, an enormous relief for my daughter and the children, as well as for his aging parents, who were too shattered to deal with the situation long-distance.

Two weeks later we had a simple but beautiful memorial service by the Hudson at a public park. We were able to reserve the pavilion free of charge, and since the family had chosen cremation, there was no need for a funeral director to be involved by this point.

A Warm Gray Day by the Hudson

The day was perfect — gray and drizzly but warm, and over 100 people came. My husband presided, and my daughter and the nine-year-old granddaughter scattered some of the ashes in the Hudson while my husband spoke about how the ashes would make their way downstream past Nyack, where our son-in-law grew up, and New York City, where they had lived. Just then a great blue heron flew downriver.

The entire experience has convinced me more than ever what an important service the FCA and its chapters provide, and how meaningful and healing a memorial service can be when planned entirely by family and friends.

Welcome to our new Board member, Barbara Eisenstadt

At our last board meeting, we came up with lots of good ideas for the coming year. We voted in a new Board member, Barbara Eisenstadt. She’s a retired psychologist with a strong interest in our issues, and I’m looking forward to her contributions to our chapter.

I’ve been busy updating our data base with the many contributions people made in response to the fall campaign, and I’m impressed all over again with people’s generosity. The list of contributors will be up here soon – those who gave us permission to publish their names, that is. If you’d like to send a contribution, your name could be up here too! Just print and fill out the form that’s part of our new membership application,, listed in the blogroll on the right.

Within the past two weeks, I attended two memorial services, each special in its own way and each very personal and moving. Soon I’ll have a blog post up here about them. And now, back to the data base!

Thanks for stopping by.

Julie Lomoe, Administrator

Board Meeting next Monday, February 15

Apotheosis of Lincoln and Washington

Our Board of Trustees meets next Monday, February 15th, at 2:00 p.m. in Albany.  Our meetings are open to the public, so if you’d like to learn more about the Memorial Society, this is an ideal time to do so. We meet at the Interfaith Impact office of Robb Smith, President of the Board, and the meetings are also accessible by conference call.

If you’re interested in participating, either in person or by phone, please e-mail me at memsoc1@nycap.rr.com. After we chat, by e-mail or phone, I’ll give you directions to the meeting and/or instructions on how to access the conference call line.

Monday is President’s Day, meaning it’s a state holiday, so this is a good time for those of you who are gainfully employed to check us out and see what we’re about. There’s no cost or obligation – I promise!

Julie Lomoe, Administrator

N.B. The illustration above is entitled “The Apotheosis of Lincoln and Washington,” and it dates from the 1860′s. I found it on Google, and I don’t have further information on it, but I would imagine the artist painted it after Lincoln’s assasination. As a Barnard art history major, I studied many paintings with the apotheosis theme, which is usually used to portray saints ascending to heaven. Maybe one of these days I’ll research the image and let you know more about it. Or if you would like to do so and post your findings here as a comment, that would be great!

WELCOME TO THE BLOG FOR THE MEMORIAL SOCIETY OF THE HUDSON-MOHAWK REGION, INC.

We’re gearing up for a busy year. The Schenectady Gazette ran a wonderful article about us on December 13th. As a result, we had lots of inquiries and requests for our Funeral and Cemetery Cost Survey, which we’ll be posting here in the near future.

Thanks to the many members who donated generously in response to our fall fundraising appeal. Soon we’ll be posting a list of those who gave permission for the use of your names. Because of your generosity, our survival is assured for the coming year and beyond. If you haven’t donated yet, it’s not too late!

DEAR ABBY featured a link to the Funeral Consumers Alliance website on Monday, January 25th. We noticed an upsurge in visits to this blog as a result. Were you one of the people who dropped in? If so, we’d like to hear from you. If you found us through another source, we’d like to know that as well.

IMPORTANT: If you would like further information about the Memorial Society, please give us your contact information. You may leave it in a comment here, or if you prefer, e-mail us at memsoc1@nycap.rr.com. 

The following materials are available free of charge:

• Membership brochure
• Fall 2009 Newsletter (includes list of participating funeral homes)
• Cost survey for selected funeral homes, cemeteries and crematories in the Capital District of New York State.

We will have these materials available online in the near future, and can also send them to you as e-mail attachments.

MEMBERSHIP: A lifetime membership in the Memorial Society costs $40 for an individual and $50 for a household. There are no annual renewal fees. Do you know of any other not-for-profit organization offering lifetime memberships? Neither do we.

PLEASE LEAVE YOUR QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS BELOW. WE’D LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU!