February Member News

Apprenticeship and Education 

Our Education Program has been approved by SkilledTradesBC for renewal until 2029.  This allows us to continue the school with the financial assistance of SkilledTradesBC as an Apprenticeship Program.  Our Education Committee has created an ad hoc group who are currently reviewing and rewriting the Apprenticeship Logbook.  We look forward to having a much less onerous process for the coming school year.  The new logbook will greatly reduce the stress on all apprentices.  Information about the intake for the 2024/25 school year will be distributed in the coming months.  To help us understand the demand for this year’s school year, please email if you intend to have an apprentice this year.

Government and Legal

We have continued to push for the inclusion of our 2024 Budget Recommendation for increased funding for the Provincial Burial Program.  We were successful in having our efforts featured in a Front Page, Sunday Times Colonist article and a News Hour interview on CFAX early February.  This advocacy gained the attention of local MLAs who followed up with support for our cause. 

Thank you to all members who sent feedback about the current challenges with the BC Coroners Service.  We have met with the Ministry of Public Safety Chief of Staff and will be arranging a meeting with the Minister once the new Chief Coroner is appointed.  We are also meeting on a staff level with the Coroner’s Leadership to work on solutions to the challenges we know you are experiencing.  This is our top priority and we will continue to advocate on your behalf.

We have become aware that many funeral providers are not getting timely payments from the Ministry of Social Development.  If you have any accounts more than 45 days overdue and would like help addressing this issue, please email [email protected] and I will bring the cases forward to our contact at the Ministry.

This month, we are negotiating the PGT Funeral Guideline Rates and hope to have an increase ready for April 1st.  We are also working together on joint solutions to improve the efficiency of the system and reduce barriers for referrals.

Continuing Education and Conference
  

We have an exciting lineup for the 2024 Conference and AGM.  Check out our website: www.bcfunerals.com/conference-2024 for more information and to register.  Attendees can earn up to 8 FD or 6 EMB CEUs by attending the conference!  Early Bird Registration is open until March 1st.     

Thank you to Todd Reinholt for putting on an excellent webinar: Creating Ambience.  We will be planning more webinars after our conference.  If you’d like to sponsor a webinar or have a topic to present, please let us know.

More information on all of our events can be found at https://bcfunerals.com/eventswebinar/events-calendar/. 

Membership

If you, your business or one of your outstanding staff would like to be spotlighted on our social media pages, please send us an email.  We’d love to feature your achievements and exciting milestones as we grow our following.  We will be working extensively on a media campaign this year to grow trust in our association and drive traffic to your firms.  We look forward to sharing more information about this at the Townhall during our AGM and Conference.

We have an exciting new Member Benefit in the works.  We have partnered with Certified Safety Training to provide informative courses on a breadth of topics relevant to funeral directors, embalmers, cemeterians, and crematorium operators.  We will be launching this online learning system in May 2024.

Current educational offerings are available with Funeral Professional Peer Support.

Did you also know you can support your clients and the BCFA by registering deaths with the Canadian Bereavement Society?  Using this link: https://www.canada-bereavement-registry.ca/bcfa you can stop spam mail, telephone marketing, and find life insurance for your clients.  Each use of the link will also give a small financial contribution to our association.

If you haven’t yet, take a minute to register for Perkopolis where you can find many discounts on travel, shopping, and more. Send your domain name or personal email information to Mary at the office and she will facilitate your registration for this great benefit.

As always, we appreciate the important work you do in the community.  We hope that 2024 is off to a successful start and we look forward to supporting you.