Back again… — Vaccinations and Conferences
Sorry for those people who were following me, I realise that I haven’t posted anything for a while but I’m back and I hope to get going again in the coming weeks.
So far, I’ve managed to avoid contracting Covid-19 and, now that I’ve had the first instalment of the vaccination, I feel a lot more confident about going out in public and mixing with people, whilst still maintaining social distancing.
I had the Astra-Zeneca version of the vaccine, which gave me about a day of feeling rough. I gather that others have had variable experiences with that same version and there are similar stories for the other vaccines too, so I don’t think there is any advantage to one or the other. To be honest, I would have endured a week of having a sore arm and tiredness if I thought it was going to help me and the rest of society (that’s the Humanism coming through into everyday life!) and, I have no worries at all about the process — if there are any risks, they are much, much smaller than the risk of catching Covid, so it’s a ‘no-brainer’.
Funeral work has been variable since a rather busy Christmas, with an average of about two ceremonies each month. I would be happier with roughly twice that number because that would keep me ticking over and still give me some free time in between. I have done a couple of ceremonies that have given me a great deal of satisfaction for a job well done. Maybe I’ll write about some of those in future posts.
February was a busy month for the Humanists in my neck of the woods — the Midlands (England, not the United States). We decided that instead of a formal conference, held in a large venue, we would have a series of online, evening sessions. Obviously, it wasn’t so much of a choice as a necessity because Covid rules forbade the usual conference option. I was drafted in to keep lists and send invitations to all those who applied — never tell anyone that you can work Excell! Actually, I enjoyed the process despite all the time that it took. I tried to write a personal email reply to everyone who applied for the Zoom link and had a few interesting conversations.
We had four, two hour sessions which broadly covered Humanism today, Climate Change and its associated psychology and people’s attitudes, Humanism in Action, and the Future of Humanism. I gave a short presentation in the Humanism in Action session, talking about being a celebrant — I only do Funerals but I tried to talk about the experience of colleagues who take Weddings and Namings too. It also covered pastoral work, which was fascinating and other practical things that Humanists do.
What was most exciting about the project was that instead of reaching only those of us in the Midlands, the coverage of a formal conference, we had attendance from all across southern England and even one from the United States; as you know, Zoom sees no barriers or borders.
By the way, if any of you are interested in seeing the presentations and a little of the things that we get up to in our part of the world, look up my contact details from my website and I can send you links to the recordings. I won’t put my contact details here directly in order to reduce the chances of inappropriate emails. My logic is that if you are really interested in the subject, you’ll take the trouble to follow it through — I hope you understand.
www.humanist.org.uk/marktaylor
So why did I pause blogging? Well, there are several answers. The first may be that I don’t cope terribly well with January and February. It seems to get worse as I get older. The cold and the darkness, which has been compounded by Covid and lockdown. Communication with friends has been vital and taking funerals has got me out of the house and forced me to talk to people. If I didn’t enjoy living with my wife, life would be really hard as well — that is really important. Humanist in Action Month was stimulating too.
A second reason is that I tried to interest a number of funeral industry magazines in accepting for publication the pieces that I have been writing here. I found one, less well known publication and was asked to write a series of monthly articles. Being asked was very flattering but there was no suggestion of a fee. That took up a lot of the time that I might otherwise have devoted to writing here. Anyway, they have not asked me to write this month, which may be due to me pointing out the lack of payment. It may sound like sour grapes (to reference Æsop) but I had never heard of the publication and I couldn’t find anyone in the industry who had either, so I don’t think that many people were seeing what I was writing.
I may recycle a couple of the things that I put into those articles, onto the blog here, if they still seem relevant. If I do, they will be heavily edited because they wouldn’t be in my blogging style, which changes every time anyway.
So, all in all, it’s good to be back!
If you would like to know a little more about me (although I’m not sure why you would!), or — a little more seriously, if you would like to contact me about either Humanism in Action Month, or ask me about a funeral, then please look up my details on my website. I always respond to emails — largely because so few people write to me, but if I can help, I will.
www.humanist.org.uk/marktaylor
