In February we did a day for the community on bereavement with an invited GP, lawyer, chaplain from St Michael’s Hospice, funeral director and our Rector – also we had information and leaflets from AtaLoss and Marie Curie. 

The bereavement journey here is just part of living. I had the wonderful exhibition ‘It takes a village’ from Scottish Palliative Care that went down a treat as it emphasised that bereavement is complex and can be seen in a variety of different ways.  I do ‘dress up’ for funerals, but I am always available to chat about life, death, grief, hope and loss, in shorts or a dog collar.

The Good News Church in Melksham recently celebrated running its 12^th The Bereavement Journey Course – having first run the programme after coming out of lockdown. 

Many of the church’s pastors and group leaders attended the Bereavement Care Awareness course face-to-face in 2018 and again in 2020 online.

Our Pastoral team of 15 participated in Care for the Family’s Bereavement Care Awareness training.  Every pastoral visitor has weekly visits.  We have retired nurses, doctors, and counsellors as part of the team.

St Peter’s first developed the idea of a bereavement café in April 2024. Pastoral encounters made us aware of an unmet need, that of a space to discuss death, dying and grief. We knew this needed to be a place of no judgement, no agenda, and where people could find a listening ear and a place to talk.