Funeral Procedures

FUNERAL PROCEDURES

Advise Sappers Association

1.  When a member of the Sappers Association dies, please advise the Membership Clerk by email clk.mbrs@sprnz.tidymail.co or by phone listed on Organisation / Executive / Membership Clerk. S/he will start association procedings.

2.  The deceased's family is in charge of all funeral arrangements. The Sappers Association complies with the family's wishes. The Sappers Association operates subordinate to Returned Services Association [RSA] and Military funerals. If there is a military funeral, it is normally displayed on this link   https://www.facebook.com/CorpsOfRoyalNewZealandEngineers/ 

3.  The Sappers Association can provide a Royal New Zealand Engineers / Sappers Association flag to drape on the coffin if requested. One flag is based in Auckland and another flag based at Palmerston North. If the RSA is involved, there may be two flags on the coffin. In this case, the RNZE flag and NZ Ensign flag are often folded so they meet each other on a diagonal.

Notification

4.  On this website, a Funeral Notice web page is set up. Initially the information is usually quite sparse, as the family is still organising things. As the arrangements firm up, this web page is updated. Sapper Association members who intend to go to the funeral should look at the update cue [see paragraph 7 below] daily to find out what is going on. It wouldn't hurt to login and see if there are any last minute changes before setting out for the funeral. Those not in the Sappers Association are advised to look on Facebook 'Sapper Mates' in case there is some funeral information there.

5.  The Menu / Deceased Members / Funeral Notice web page is set needing members login by default. Until the family specifically gives permission to make the page public, it will remain login. The reasons for this are that with public notices some undesirable activity could happen:

  (a)  Free loaders could attend the funeral after function to eat food pretending to be guests.

  (b)  Criminals could burgle the family house knowing that everyone will be away at the funeral.

Those Sapper Association members who've forgotten their password can email clk.mbrs@sprnz.tidymail.co for a password reset. This reset would be sent to the member's email address shown top right of the email in paragraph 6 below.

6.   A 'trigger' email is usually sent advising members of the login web page Funeral Notice. As the Sappers Association membership spans over 70 years of enlistiments at any one time, there will be many who never knew the deceased. So this email is restricted to:

  (a)  Those close mates who have actioned their profile giving the now deceased member permission to obtain their contact details.

  (b)  The five-year Era the deceased belonged to, plus two five-year eras beforehand and two five-year eras following. This makes a 25 year span of members who probably knew the deceased.

7.  The public [no login required] web page Organisation / Reunions Eras Funerals is updated showing the deceased's name and date login page Funeral Notice [para 4 above] was last updated. Check on this daily.

8.  The login web page Deceased Members / Last Post has the member's date of passing entered.

Roll Of Honour

9.  Once the deceased member's name has been read out at the next Annual General Meeting 'Minute of Silence' s/he will have his/her name moved from the member Last Post list and Current Members list to the member Roll Of Honour list.

20 Oct 2024 last updated.