I have some incredibly exciting news that I’ve been wanting to share with you all for some time now. It’s not that I couldn’t, only that I thought exactly one month before the event was a great time to let you all know. So if you’re free on the 16th May, can get to Hornchurch and fancy a night in a pub talking about death then please keep reading! (I mean, if you’re not free, can’t get to east London or hate pubs you’re more than welcome to keep reading also, don’t worry.)
On Wednesday 16th May I will be hosting a Death Cafe. What is a Death Cafe? Well, I knew you’d ask. Death Cafe is an organisation who advocate and promote the discussions of death in a positive way. You can find out more about the history and how they started at http://deathcafe.com/what/. A Death Cafe event itself is a place to go and talk to other people about death. It is very much in the vein of the Death Positive movement that I am a full supporter of. I honestly think that the world would be a better place and we would all be a bit happier about it if we just spoke about death a bit more!
The event on the 16th May also coincides with Dying Matters week. Dying Matters is an organisation based in England & Wales who encourage people to talk about death, dying and bereavement. They were originally started by the Department of Health and now work with NHS UK. They aim to get everyone to the stage of ‘a good death’ where people are aware of the wishes of the dying and deceased. Dying Matters week 2018 runs from the 14th to the 20th May and their homepage has a lot more information and details of events that may be closer to home for you.
If you do fancy it, come along to the pub on the 16th and join us. There will be drinks, food available if you would like it and plenty of discussions around death. As someone with anxiety, I understand if you would like to come along but would like to listen to the discussions rather than participate and this is totally fine! My friend Rachel, who attended the Death Cafe event in November with me, has kindly agreed to cohost with me too and we are looking forward to meeting everyone. If you have any other questions or concerns about the evening please do not hesitate to contact me either through comments here, @gemmanorbs on Twitter or at gemmanorburn@icloud.com and I will respond to you as soon as I can.
The evening will have no specific themes or objectives, other than the fact I’d like to get a group or groups of people together and chatting about death. I’m eager for the conversation to flow naturally and there’s no pressure to share anything you don’t want to. The flyer for the event is below for more information, if you want to print this or would like a printed copy to display somewhere please also get in touch.
I’m very excited about this event as you can probably tell and I hope to see some of your faces there on the night!
MG x
Mortuary Gem 
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