Sept. ‘00                       Volume 2.2
Casket Retailing 

The Newsletter of the National Casket Retailers Association, Inc. http://www.casketstores.com

A Note from our Elections Judge, Bob White; According to the NCRA By-Laws http://www.casketstores.com/cgi-bin/ceilidh.cgi/ceilidh/ ?C3cf5686c6LmM-3895-451-00.htm (quote) ...... will announce the successful candidates during the Annual Meeting If there are no more than nine (9) candidates for the Board of Directors, including the Officers, then these nine shall be deemed elected without the need for formal voting. (end quote) Submitted members for these positions, as reported on the 15th of Sept., 2000 by the NCRA Elections Judge, Mr. Bob White are as followed  (The acceptance of further Officer positions is now closed, there are however seats available for Board Members, inform at meeting if wish to fill that seat)  NATIONAL CASKET RETAILER'S ASSOCIATION BALLOT FOR 2000-2001 OFFICERS  Chairman: Kevin Gray Direct Casket - New York  Vice Chairman: Betty Brown A Team Masters - Ohio  Secretary Thelma Jaco Peachtree Caskets Direct - Georgia  Treasurer George Silva Competitive Caskets - New Jersey  Directors Pat Clark Abbey Caskets- Indiana  Michael Fortune Precious Memories Casket Co. - Maryland  Randall W. Gernand Heritage Caskets & Monuments - Indiana  Floyd Hoke Caring Caskets - Arkansas Membership Pat White The Casket Store - Georgia  The 9 positions above, according to by laws, do not need a formal vote, as none have opposing candidates.  Additionally, on the Agenda for the Oct. 28th meeting;  Adding possible categories, Benefit Chairman  Fundraising/ Lobbyist  Media / Advertising  NCRA ANNUAL  MEETING Annual NCRA meeting details: When: Saturday October 28, 2000 Buffet Dinner at 5:00 pm meeting at 6:00 pm Where: Best Western Hotel in Middletown, Pa - near Harrisburg airport, 3 miles, shuttle provided Cost: Dinner is $19.95 or meeting fee is $10.00 if overnight room is needed, please call Kim at 888-868-5952 - ext. 118 and mention NCRA group to receive the discounted rate. Reservations are required no later than Oct. 13th to be emailed to casketstores@email.com Please send information ASAP as to how many in your party. Agenda is still being worked upon. Please forward any other Speakers, Suppliers or other information to webmaster today.  Once you have emailed the webmaster with your meeting attendance number & if dinner, you will be given a code, choice of 2 entrees for buffet and other details.

TENNESSEE CASKET RETAILERS  FIGHT BACK Jerry and Angela Harwood Brent of The Casket Store located in Knoxville TN successfully sued the state of Tennessee in Federal Court and won the right to sell funeral merchandise to the public.  It was a long fight but worthwhile to them and to others in the same situation. Jerry and Angela opened their store in May of 1999 and was issued a cease and desist 5 days later. They closed the store but reopened 10 days later, even though they could not sell caskets.  Eventually the Institute for Justice picked up the fight and and on August 21, 2000 they won their case and are now back in the business of selling caskets. We still have many other stores in other states that are fighting this fight. We all need to support them in any way we can. You can contact Angela at http://www.thecasketstoretn.com or call at 865-670-0104.   Insert YOUR story here! Email Thelma J. TMOflash@aol.com Complaints Matter!  Be sure to send us a copy of your complaint (that you have filed with the FTC or BBB or others)so that we may post it on our WebPages for all to see. http://www.casketstores.com/complaints.html   True or False? Attention: The beatings will continue until morale improves,(cough) the new guys get smarter, people unite & WORK as a team or the bully wins. Attention National Casket Retailer's Association Does the NCRA membership want to acquire the url of casketstores.org ? A vote by 2/3rds of the newly elected  Offers/Board of Directors- those in attendance at the meeting, will decide. We can trade the name www.casketstores.com for the www.casketstores.org and the old url will remain dormant for 12 months - directing all traffic to the new url. All wesites linked to the old site will be emailed information to update them to the new org site.  The distinction of the org ending shows it as an organization, and demotes non profit also, and was not available I believe, when the .com url was reserved.  The only costs involved would be the registration fees, payment of the new registration fees, change over fees for both domain names, and the time it took to inform all of the existing linking sites of the new url, http://www.casketstores.org the dead www.casketstore.com for the 12 months would be carried on the same server, so NCRA would pay for those months, as they do anyway.  Then at the end of the 12 months, the old url is now taken down for use by new owner. The pluses, people expect the org as it is what we are, it won't cost much, it is offered as available. The minus' for a yr it might be somewhat of a hassle, but livable, if the org changeover is not acted upon now - it will be gone later. Questions & answers at the meeting or email webmaster.

NCRA Benefits Corner There are more benefits in the works for the NCRA members also.  1) The NARDA Credit Union has accepted the NCRA membership. They will be doing a mailing shortly to outline all of the benefits. 2) Cheetah Freight Solutions Inc.  800-694-9911 contact Joseph Mulinaro - a specialized freight, both ground and air, another benefit,  for members 3) pager, toll free number service, etc.  4) Did you get your atty. survey form filled in and returned? Please email webmaster  if you  need this form.  5)The store listing and all related information displayed on the NCRA store directory webpage. With a hot link to your web page, if you have one.  6) We are working with a lending institution for retailers to offer fast approval with this firm, for purchases of funeral product. Loans from this firm,  directly to families in need of a money source. 7) Proceeds from sale of Memorial pin  Charity or National "saving graves" origination. 8) All members receive NCRA email news & newsletters and other benefits. 9) The very BEST merchant account rates, from two choices of firms offering great options to our membership.  There is also a FAQ web page that you as members can link to - that will offer your visitors more information on arrangements and items covered when visiting a funeral home, or buying from retailers. It is a stand alone web site (copy & paste all meta tags not included) a href="http://meltingpot.fortunecity.com//peacock/11/faq.htm" TARGET="_blank"> img width="300" height="38" border="0" alt="member of the NCRA, see our FAQ pg, opens in new window" src="yourpage name image - then a close tag, then the /a surronded by tags. (Whichever image you choose off of the NCRA site to use with your website colors.) If questions, please email webmaster. Our membership chairman Pat White of The Casket Store in Ga. has designed  a certificate of membership for the NCRA members. It is suitable for framing for the casket stores. Upon new membership it will now be included with the welcome package, and upon payments for renewals of all others, it will be mailed out also. It will be at the meeting so it can be reviewed to accept or change if any. We are on the Prowl for new members too, we are growing steadily. Helping the NCRA grow, helps us all spread the news about this industry. Joining us in this month were 3 new members, NJ & Pa., and NC.  We have heard of other sources for some name brand caskets also.  The fight of restricted sales is slowly being less confined. But it is far from free trade, could be closed off,  and it is at a higher price. It will take several members - casket retailers and others working together plus  time and money to get it done right. If you have heard of anything along this subject, please email in. The webmaster reports that he has fielded  4 to 6 pieces of email daily from the casketstores@email.com site to others recently. The web site is getting a lot more hits, more response on the bulletin board and links to the web site, in the past month.  The NCRA presence is spreading rapidly, thanks, in part to all of the media, television shows (we were featured on PBS, On Our Own Terms, and linked to that site as well - and to our membership activity. This newsletter is the effort of Thelma J. Of Peachtree caskets, Ga. Please forward any information you might like included in our next issue to her, our NCRA secretary.  Please make sure you have your newest address, phone email, website url and other information sent in to webmaster for Directory update. Check it now http://www.casketstores.com/Directory.htm please. MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL  FEES for 200-2001 from,  Sept. 2000 are DUE NOW, Send in to George S. Of  Competitive Caskets, N. J.  Tres. Today Please to avoid  added mailings. Your newsletter copy will be mailed out  shortly, along with the new membership  certificates.  We'll see you in PA 10/28/00 along with all of the other members, & VIP.  Brainstorming & networking occurs there too!

A DAY AT THE FAIR In March of 2000, Peachtree Caskets of Atlanta merged with Southcare Memorial Chapel. Southcare is a discount funeral home and cremation society. Two new stores were also added, we are now able to give our customers a choice of services as well as funeral merchandise. As I speak to more people in this industry, I am hearing more store owners mentioning that they are looking into purchasing a funeral home or aligning themselves with funeral homes, in order to combat the shenanigans that the funeral directors are trying to pull.  After we merged, we tried to figure out how to get our message out to the public. The biggest complaint we hear here is "Man, I wish I had known you were here last month when I needed a casket." However, advertising is very expensive here, to the point of being prohibitive. So, how to get the message out.  We rented a booth at the County Fair. The newspapers of course picked up the story, and more than 100,000 people passed through our booth in the 10 days we were there. In my mind our most important job is to inform the public. Not just about funeral merchandise, but also about funeral services, funeral directors, and protecting themselves and their families from underhanded tactics. We will also be setting up a booth at the local flea market next week-end. This may sound tacky to some of you out there, but we do not sell caskets in these expos and our main purpose is to educate the public and they are very grateful to us for it. If anyone else out there has any creative ideas about how to get your message to the public send them to me so we can share them. APATHY Since only one person submitted a story this month, I have some extra space for a little editorilizing. I looked up the definition of Apathy in the dictionary. The definition is lack of want, insensibility, indifference. We all have a tendency to sit around and say I wish my store was doing better, I wish the funeral directors would quit playing stupid games, I wish more people knew about us, etc. Well what have you done today or yesterday or the day before to make some of these things happen. Do you know why the Funeral Directors can make it so hard on all of us. Because they are organized. Have you ever met a funeral director that is not a member of at least one funeral director's association? They have money to lobby. They have money to get politicians elected. They have influence everywhere, because they are organized. And because they stick together. I know from experience that if you do something during a delivery at one funeral home, every funeral home in town will know before you pull into your driveway. If you add new products, there will be a meeting before the week is out to figure out how to combat it.  We are sorely lacking that. We are making a first step with this meeting, but on a daily basis we need to share our knowledge and experience. If you have had a good or bad experience recently, one of us went through that same thing yesterday or we will tomorrow. What happened, how did you handle it, who can you share it with that may run into the same situation tomorrow. The only consistent correspondence I get is from someone who has a real hate on for the NCRA web masters (probably a person in the funeral industry, trying to stop us all from getting the word out!). But we are all pulling together to fight scams, untruths and efforts to stop our growth!  Please send me items, ideas, happenings, nothing is too big or too small. We are not in competition with each other. We need to share our ideas, our solutions, and our time. We can make a difference.