Dying Matters Week planning & inspiration
We just had an inspirational online catchup with a few of the wonderful humans coordinating Dying Matters Week 2026 programmes. Don’t worry if you missed it – a full email update is heading your way shortly!
It was great to have representation from across the country including Auckland, Whangārei, Hawke’s Bay and Wellington.
New resources for event hosts
We did a quick run through of the new online resources for event hosts and how to use them. This includes editable Canva templates for event social tiles and posters as well as an online form to upload your own events.
Our team will still check each event and review before publishing on regional event pages but the new tools should save everyone time and hopefully encourage more businesses and organisations to run their own events.
Updates from the regions
Whangārei is holding an expo-style event with exhibitors ranging from funeral directors to investment specialists, from florists to caterers, from Advance Care planning to community groups and clubs for seniors.
Wellington has a one day expo in Tawa planned but are also in talks with Wellington Central Library to co-create a program for central city dwellers and workers. Keep an eye out for speakers like Lee-Anne Duncan from Too Young and Elisabeth Price, researcher and expert on talking to children about death.
Hawkes Bay has events planned in both Hastings and Napier this year including the return of popular speaker, Michael Nestmann from Te Whatu Ora’s Assisted Dying program.
Auckland need more people to help, being such a large spread out city but have a great relationships with Auckland Public Libraries with regular Death Cafes and other events planned around the region.
Latest ideas & inspiration
As always there was a lot of sharing of ideas and frantic note writing. Some of the great ideas discussed at this month’s meeting were:
- Including talks on digital and cyber safety
- A Wind Phone for people to talk to loved ones
- Florists displays and catering samples
- A memorial planting a tree day to remember loved ones
- Bucket List poster to take away and add to
- Distilling death – talks over cocktails
- Thought provoking series of signs in public parks
- Scotland’s ‘Week for absent friends’ festival
- Andrea Gibson show on Apple TV
Dying Matters Week 2026
– Get Involved!
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Dying Matters Week Expression of Interest
