96 | COMMUNITY Funeral Directors Association of NZ Funeral sector looking to tighten up Sue Russell FDANZ board of directors, from left, Andrew Malcolm, Rachel Benns, Richard Fullard, Gary Taylor, Peter Giddens, and Phillip Meyer. Gary Taylor, President of the Funeral Directors Assn of NZ says that generally there are two pathways to becoming a Funeral Director: Take over a family-owned business or find your own way into the sector. The latter is Gary’s journey. “I remember being asked when I was at school what I wanted to do when I left. I knew then that I was fascinated by funerals and said I wanted to be an Undertaker, as it was called in England at the time,” Gary explains. In fact he has been working in the industry since age 17 ½ in England and now at 56 years old now leads an organisation intent on ensuring the professionalism of the role and the proper standards that go with that are upheld, and especially, understood by the public. He holds strong views about what needs to change here in order to shine a light on poor practice and ultimately get rid of the ‘dodgy’ operators in the sector. To be a member of the Funeral Directors Association of New Zealand a business needs to meet strict criteria, and sadly, these standards are not mandated by legislation; a situation Gary says is about to change. “We’re delighted that finally there will be changes to the rules. Back in 2010, the Law Commission was asked to look at the whole burial and cremation sector and in 2015 came out with recommendations. The Ministry of Health have got the draft plans and the Funeral Directors Association of New Zealand is being used as a bit of a barometer as to what we think needs to change.” Above all Gary says there needs to be a higher bar for entry. As it stands now, to open the door as a Funeral Director requires payment of a levy to local territorial authorities. In some districts, there’s a checking by Council of the situation of the company, it’s premises, practices, but this is not mandatory. “This basically means that anyone can, having paid the levy, call themselves a Funeral Director. We are very concerned about the situation of some businesses and the treatment given to families and to care of the deceased.” Currently the organisation has 124 members. Businesses join the Funerals Directors Association of New Zealand, rather than individual practitioners. To belong, a process of inspection and checking of policies and systems is enacted and when Business North spoke with Gary, a further three or four members were about to join. “To meet our criteria you have to have a qualified Funeral Director engaged in the company and the business has to have access to or be supervised by a qualified embalmer. You also have to have appropriate systems in place for pre-paid funeral funds. We have a high threshold of criteria to become a member of the organisation.” Covid has shaken the sector like no other phenomenon and Gary says he is proud of how Funeral Directors adapted very quickly to a shifting set of conditions to operate it. With very short notice, the sector had to adapt to firstly, no funerals, then tight limited numbers allowed to attend, to changes from one district to another. Gary feels the impact of COVID, at a deep level, will play out in consequences for many years to come. “We were fortunate to same degree when it first struck that we did have a plan in place that we had developed years before for just this sort of situation; nevertheless, at a human level, Covid has been a tragedy for families denied the opportunity to grieve.” Estimates suggest that about 4,000 families were affected by the first seven week lockdown. “Since time immemorial there have always been funerals. It’s our way of coping with an event we generally are not ever prepared for. We really really struggle with death so funerals are really important for our emotional well-being.” Gary has a lot to share about grief. Firstly, it is nature’s way, he says, of slowing us down, because we need time to process what has happened and that can only happen through time. A funeral marks the beginning of that journey, so to be denied that first step puts everything else that follows in the passage of grief further out of reach. During those dark days of lockdown and subsequently Gary says he’s very proud of the fact that the Funeral Directors Association of New Zealand changed Government’s mind on maintaining tight restrictions, enabling funerals to recommence, and for people to gather. “As soon as the lockdown was announced, the next day we were on a zoom meeting with Ministry of Health people and we spent the next two weeks working out how we could open our doors again.” Looking back on other changes, Gary says that once, if you became a Funeral Director, you were one most of your working life, however today, given the demands of the role, people tend to spend some time in the sector and then move on to other occupations. “It’s a very demanding vocation both physically and emotionally. To be a good Funeral Director you need to be able to give a bit of yourself every time to really do the job well.”
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