Viewing Volume 4 Issue 2 Autumn 2001
Viewpoint of a Member.
I can't remember when I joined Manchester Area Bereavement Forum, but I do remember why I joined. I was working in the field of bereavement and felt isolated in doing so. It's a difficult subject, not exactly a dinner table conversation piece. In fact talking about my work has often killed conversation immediately. Perhaps this is testament to societies attitude towards death in general. If we don't talk about it, it may go away, or why are you talking about that? It's so morbid! Perhaps the isolation I felt as someone working with death and dying mirrored those people who are experiencing bereavement. So many anecdotal stories exist about neighbours who cross the road and shoppers who rush off down another aisle, just to avoid meeting the bereaved person.
So, whenever it was that I discovered MABF existed and I sent off my subscription money to join up for a year, my only expectation was to get to know others who were 'out there' too.
I often think about others who perhaps joined for similar reasons and what they hope to get out of their membership to MABF and I was reminded of this at the annual conference in September. The GMB hall was full of people who had paid their money and were there out of interest, curiosity and perhaps most importantly to mix with others who were making a difference or changing their approach in light of what they heard and who they met. The audience was drawn from wide and diverse backgrounds but with the common bond of wanting to know more and in doing so, develop their care and practices. If you could have harnessed the enthusiasm and willingness to listen to others, what changes could be brought about! I felt privileged to be a (very) small part of such a group of people and to be part of the organisation that had brought the day to reality.
I have been the sort of person who turned up to a conference and just took and accepted all that was on offer, with no real concept of the attention and effort that goes into organising such an event. I might have moaned that the coffee wasn't quite hot enough or that there were no interesting biscuits left at break times whilst missing the real point of why I had attended in the first place or appreciation of all the behind the scenes activity.
It felt different this year. As I said earlier, I played a small part in helping MABF organise the Bereavement in Later Life conference but only then could I start to understand and appreciate all that had to happen to make the event the success it was.
From folding and posting thousands of fliers promoting the conference at the start of the year through to the frantic struggle to fill a slot left vacant due to ill health of one of our speakers with less than a week to go to the day! I soon discovered that bribery and corruption could work wonders on occasions!! The manuals that all the delegates received were the result of a production line of photocopying, hole punching and several of us getting dizzy walking around the table ensuring that each folder had the correct sequence of pages and inserts. The trauma of discovering that abstracts were late being submitted; we were 3 pages missing and would have to start the process again.
There were also the late night trips to a well known stationery store for labels, name holders and ring binders. On the day it was guide people into the hall and fingers crossed.......
For those of you reading this, your experience of the day will be personal and I don't intend to review the day in any greater detail. The evaluation forms completed will speak for themselves.
What I do feel needs saying is that I am perhaps guilty of over stating my involvement but I was witness to a very small committed group of people who worked extraordinarily hard in organising what is our main source of annual funding. After all, without this event the work of MABF would be severely curtailed. From booking the hall, choosing and contacting exciting speakers, sorting out menus, fliers, advertisements, invoicing and confirming places, arranging transport and maps to the venue, typing, printing, co-ordinating the manuals through to ensuring the day itself ran smoothly, all this appeared to be done by very few people.
As I sat in the hall, observing the networking and listened to the comments from the delegates, I wondered how we at MABF could harness that enthusiasm and prolong it through the year. If we could, what impact would it have on our organisation and the ability for us to be a major force in the field of bereavement care? I wonder how many people want more from their subscription money than just a reduced conference rate? I wonder how many people reading this would like to be more involved? I shall certainly be offering my services much earlier in the process next year... Will you?
By:DF
Post Conference Letter
from Phylliss Rolf Silverman
I very rarely write in such detail about my travels and rarely burden people with these details. I decided however, that since people are asking me about my experiences since September 11th this is the best way to do it without having to repeat myself. It is also a way of sending new year greeting to one and all. In Israel they are not asking for a healthy or peaceful or sweet new year. I am told they asking for a quiet year. May this be true for all of us !
On Wednesday evening September 5th I boarded United Airline Flight #998 to London's Heathrow Airport. I was heading for Oxford, Manchester and then Dublin where I was going to speak to various audiences about my work with the bereaved. One of the things that stands out about what was basically an uneventful flight was the paucity of security at Logan airport. Having traveled to Holland last June and experienced the security at the Amsterdam airport, both to Israel on El Al and back to the US on an American carrier, I feared for the safety of those leaving Logan that evening.
Sam did not come with me because we were unable to leave earlier and wanted to be back for the Jewish New Year which began on the evening of September 17th. We would have had very little time between my commitments for a much needed holiday.
I was the guest of Marilyn Relf in Oxford. She is the Director of Bereavement Services at Sobell House, the hospice that serves the greater Oxford area. My talks on Friday September 7th about Lessons From The Child Bereavement Study. Went well, and over the weekend there was very good conversation, good shopping and good company. On Saturday we watched a movie on TV that I had never heard of. Speilberg's very first movie, I think 1973, called DUEL about a man driving across the south west who finds his life threatened by a truck whose driver the audience never sees and the man driving alone never sees and for reasons that are never clear the truck pursues him and ultimately tries unsuccessfully drive him off the road. Marilyn and I both felt that this was a movie about the unpredictability of modern life, that we often find ourselves being pursued by people whom we never confront, we are often defenseless in the face of their attack and whose cause is not something that we had any part in. (After the NY attacks we felt the correctness of our interpretation and the power of the movie was even more clear to us) On that weekend in Oxford we managed to see the comedienne Victoria Wood do a one women show. She is a middle aged podgy woman who is fabulous and the laughter turned out to have served me well for the whole week. I recommend her to one and all if she ever gets to this side of the ocean. She was especially funny as she talks about "the changes" and women growing older. She poked fun at the health care professionals and the system in ways all our students should hear.
I found out that just because places are in England doesn't mean that there can't be great distances between them. I went to visit St. Christopher's Hospice. For those who don't know, this is the place where much of hospice work today began in the 1960's. It was 2 hours away from Oxford. I never thought to look before I made arrangements to visit. I had forgotten what big cities are like, but it was worth the trip. Had a great visit with friends and colleagues there, and learned how they are changing and growing and got more history of where they have been and where they are going from Dame Cicely Saunders, the founder of St. Christopher's. She was to come to NY on Wednesday 12th to be honoured on Monday the 18th by the Conrad Hilton Foundation who had awarded St. Christopher's 1 million dollars in support of its work. Needless to say the celebration was canceled. I also had dinner with Barbara Monroe, the new CEO and Clinical Director. She makes me proud to have my roots in social work.
I returned to Oxford that evening and on Tuesday morning September 11th took the train to Manchester, the next leg of my journey. I was one of several speakers at an all day meeting on the 12th, on Bereavement in Later Life sponsored by the Manchester Area Bereavement Forum. The Manchester Area Bereavement Forum is run by Angela Trinder and her husband Steve. I got to Manchester in the early afternoon and had the afternoon to relax. I settled in my room and thought I might do some work that I brought with me. I had just gotten started when Steve knocked on the door and asked if I was watching TV. I explained that I was enjoying the quiet and in spite of his insistence I said "no" I didn't want to watch. He patiently explained that something awful had happened and he didn't want me to be alone when I found out. We put on the TV. I was so grateful to Steve that he didn't want me to be alone. Everyone there (I was the only American) were equally solicitous. They were as helpful as they could be and very supportive. I of course was at a loss for what to think or what to do, and found myself very grateful for getting support rather than having to provide it, although the impulse is to say "I'm okay, I don't need anything". My first thought was to call home. The rooms ordinarily didn't have phones but they put one in so that when the circuits were open I could get through. I did get through and Sam said our children were fine. I called him several times that night just to touch base, and once at 4 in the morning when I couldn't sleep to ask if he had called my sister who lives on Long Island. She had called him and all were safe.
One of my daughters was in St. Louis and with her Colleague had rented a car for their business. They clearly were not going to Denver as planned. They got in the car and drove back to New Hampshire in 2 days. Apparently the rental companies told people, who had cars, to do just that. There were no additional charges. If you didn't have a car they soon ran out.
We were all glued to the TV but the meeting went ahead as planned. We began with a moment of silence. For those of you who know her, Margaret Stroebe was the keynote speaker and she did a fine job of reviewing what we know about loss in the elderly. By the time it was my turn I had decided that I had to say something about what happened in NYC. I had already heard one commentator, on the TV, say we need to get to the root causes and then this wont happen. My blood was boiling - when can this kind of crime be justified. I felt I had to speak out.
I kept thinking about a comment about the holocaust written by Rev. Niemeuller.. I write from my notes, I didn't have the correct quotes from Niemeuller but the spirit was there.
There is a statement engraved on the holocaust memorial in Boston that keeps coming back to me and reminding me of my own need to actively think about how to respond to what has happened. It is not the exact quote but this is what I remember:
When they came for the retarded -
I did nothing
When they came for the mentally ill -
I said nothing
When they cam for the trade union members
I was silent
When they came for the Jews
I did nothing
When they came for me
There was no one there!
What is our responsibility?
We do need to consider what we can do to help the bereaved but we also need to consider the political side and what we need to do about the world we live in.. How do we prevent such acts, how do we limit the ability of people to do such harm? One way of looking at this is to ask what is it that drives people to justify this kind of destructive behaviour. Some commentators on TV have talked about the need for to get at the root causes. But for me I think we need to be clear that NOTHING can justify this kind of destructive behaviour. One way of looking at what has happened is to recognise that it is a small group of people who are victimising the rest of us and that we have to ask if we as victims are allowing this to happen. You need both a victim and a victimiser. We can look at the Munich Syndrome.. Chamberlain tried it. It is not unlike the battered woman syndrome, where the victim tries to justify what is happening to her, everybody apologises and says they are sorry and then at the next opportunity the batterer is at it again for some sorry excuse that has no relevance to the matter.
Violence in this kind of situation cannot be justified. I am not sure how to generalise this to whole populations, but I can't let go my concern for how we accept victimising behaviour. I have no easy answers but all of us need to be involved as we seek ways of being clear about what is acceptable and that we all need to be involved in our communities and join together to bring change about.
That's what I said. People applauded and I went on with my talk as planned. I knew I didn't have any answers but I knew we have to come together - that it wasn't going to be pleasant or easy but....
After the meeting I was on my way to Dublin. Steve took me to the airport. My flight was delayed 2 hours because of security. They needed to get people to the airport to do this work. "Where were you when we needed you in Boston?" I had to check everything, carrying as little as possible. I had to explain my pillow for my hip and that was okay. I was frisked twice, everything I had to carry on was opened and examined very carefully, not unlike what was routine in Amsterdam and Israel.
....................................................................................................
I am home. The holiday was wonderful with family and friends. Now I need to think about what next?? The grief is not only in those who lost loved ones, but each of us grieving for the world we thought was safe. Somehow we will work on that. How do we rally to be sure that there are no excuses for this kind of violence.. Can we really talk about this kind of behaviour as solving any problems? Making any points beyond madness? I think that what the government is talking about makes sense. But we will need more, and what do we do after that, and what are the next steps? How do we get people to take responsibility for what they start and that defending yourself is not terrorism? This language has been adopted by the terrorist and they know how to victimise us well.
Much love to you all.... And in the spirit of Yom Kippur coming, May We all be Written in the Book for Life..
Phyllis.
By:
Conference Audit:
Many thanks to all who contributed to MABF's 8th International Conference on Bereavement & Loss, speakers, delegates and volunteers.
The audit of evaluation forms were as follows:-
1. Where did you find the conference advertised?
Flyers: 31%
Journals: 30%
Mailshots: 20%
Members: 19%
2. How Satisfactory were the directions?
Poor: 13%
Average: 18%
Good: 28%
V.Good: 26%
Excellent: 15%
3. How pleased were you with the management and content of the day?
Poor: 0%
Avereage: 0%
Good: 12%
V.Good: 64%
Excellent: 24%
4. How satisfactory were the speakers?
Poor: 0%
Average: 1%
Good: 10%
V.Good: 64%
Excellent: 27%
5. Do you agree with the format of the day?
Yes: 94% No: 6%
6. What did you like most about the day?
Speakers: 62%
Content: 22%
Organisation/Timing: 16%
7. What did you least like about the day?
Poor PA System: 62%
Insufficient Toilets: 38%
8. How did you find the venue, facilities and catering?
Average: 4%
Good: 16%
V.Good: 44%
Excellent: 36%
The audit of evaluation forms is a valuable tool for MABF to show the committee anything that could be improved, changed or deleted.
Lets hope support for next years conference exceeds 2001.
By:AT