MuchLoved

21st October 2009 – In Memoriam Charity Presentation

We were delighted to present at the In Memoriam meeting for the North of England Charity Fundraising Group. Thank you for all your positive feedback and grilling questions and we look forward to working together with many of you.

16th October 2009 – Welcoming New Charity Partners

A number of charities have joined with our service recently including The Sick Children’s Trust, Beating Bowel Cancer and Heart Research UK. Thank you so much for choosing to work with and support MuchLoved.

11th October 2009 – Royal Parks Half Marathon and For Dementia Golf Day

It has been great to get involved in a number of events including The Royal Parks Half Marathon and the annual For Dementia Golf Day, despite the fact that the MuchLoved team lost their winning run of two consecutive victories!

30th September 2009 – Welcoming new Hospice Partners

Increasingly this year, hospices have started to partner with us and we look forward to building our relationship with the Hospice movement. In the last few months we have welcomed Princess Alice Hospice, Dr Kershaw’s Hospice and St Francis Hospice.

15th September 2009 – Welcoming new Hospital Partners

The MuchLoved memorial service is open to all organisations that have contact with and support bereaved people. A number of hospitals have recently become partners including Aintree University Hospital and The Noah’s Ark Appeal (Children’s Hospital of Wales)

8th September 2009 – Tweet With Us

It took quite a while before we could say ‘tweet’ without sniggering but now we are regular tweeters and keen to meet up with like-minded people. You can find us on twitter as MuchLovedUK

2nd September 2009 – Updated MuchLoved Homepage

We are pleased to announce that our homepage has now been updated with an improved layout and more information about MuchLoved memorials, plus a new Grief Resources section to signpost leading UK bereavement support organisations to all our users. It is also now simple to locate any tribute which has public access enabled by going to our Visit a Tribute page.

28th August 2009 – Welcoming new Funeral Directors

Many Funeral Directors have embraced the online memorial concept as part of their after-care support and we welcome Rosedale Funeral Home, The English Funeral Director (serving families living in Spain), The Family Tree Funeral Company and Walter H Squires & Son.

10th August 2009 – A guide to Tribute Fund Schemes

With the support of John Grain Associates, experts in In Memoriam fundraising, we have published an easy guide to setting up a Tribute Fund scheme. It is suitable for many charities and hospices so for your free copy please contact us with your details.

16-17th July 2009 – Cruse Bereavement Care Conference, Warwick

MuchLoved exhibited as part of the Cruse 50th Anniversary Conference at Warwick University this week. It was interesting to see the many different reactions from delegates as to the opportunities and benefits of online remembrance and it was great to make contact with so many staff and volunteers of Cruse.

18th June 2009 – MuchLoved Facebook Group

For all those Facebook addicts out there, we have a MuchLoved Group now where we will post any important site news and updates. Please do feel free to join our group which is open to all users and partners who would like to keep in touch via Facebook.

11-14th June 2009 – National Funeral Exhibition, Stoneleigh

MuchLoved exhibited again at the biennial NFE conference in Stoneleigh which was a great chance to perform many demonstrations and put a lot of faces to names and email addresses. We really appreciate the support of the Funeral Industry towards our initiative and hope to continue to deepen relationships over the coming months.

24th May 2009 – New MuchLoved tag line

Whilst we have always used the tag line ‘your place to remember’, we’ve found that increasingly people call us ‘the online memorial charity’ and so we’ve decided to update our tag line as this is a clearer description of who we are. It’s a small thing but you’ll notice our logo being updated to reflect this shortly.

20th May 2009 – Recent Site Improvements

Our software programmers are busy making a number of improvements to the appearance and layout of the service including the way the ‘Thoughts’ Gallery and ‘Messages of Support’ appear, along with improved controls to move between pages on websites that contain many messages and thoughts. This is all part of our continuous improvement work schedule with our next main project being an update of the MuchLoved homepage.

18th April 2009 – Help Videos Online

If you would like to look at some simple short screencasts we’ve created to help illustrate the main features of MuchLoved visually, please take a look on our video Guided Tour page.

18th February 2009

It’s great to announce that Maggie Dwyer will be supporting the work of MuchLoved. As growing numbers of people have discovered MuchLoved it has become vital to get more help dealing with enquiries and suggestions and so we’re pleased (and relieved!) that Maggie will be helping us. If you are a member of our community do please say hello to her.

16th February 2009

Colourful Coffins have partnered with us to provide a free website memorial service to their clients. Colourful Coffins are the leading personalised and custom coffin designers and are offering MuchLoved memorials as part of their unique service to create coffins as individual and special as the person they celebrate.

12th January 2009

MuchLoved purple ribbon remembrance pin badges are now available. To request a free badge, please email us with your postal address.

6th January 2009

A monthly Charity e-Newsletter is now being produced to keep all partners including charities, funeral directors and hospices up to date with developments. If you would like to be included in the mailing please just let us know.

10th December 2008

A large number of new tribute designs have now been added to your Settings panel to choose from under ‘Tribute Appearance’. This includes some designs for special times of the year such as Christmas and Birthdays as well as a number of new themes and designs. Do take a look and we hope that you find them in keeping with the overall style and ethos of MuchLoved.

1st December 2008

We are really pleased to welcome a number of new charity partners including Barnardos and The Anthony Nolan Trust. We hope that our service will be of great benefit to your community and supporters.

30th October 2008

In partnership with Sent Forever, a number of our users transmitted their tribute websites into space for All Souls Day. The progress of the tributes as they travel through space can be tracked from the Sent Forever website and this transmission will be repeated next year if other users would like to participate in the event.

23rd October 2008

All new users can now upgrade their websites to our free hosted service by using our new online Authentication form. This acts as a confirmation that you wish to maintain your website and also as a manual check by our Support Team before public access to a website can be enabled.

8th October 2008

The Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) have now launched their Donation Station service which processes and remits donations to a chosen charity. MuchLoved is a leading partner in this initiative and is using their Donation Station to process all the charitable donations made through MuchLoved.

15th September 2008

MuchLoved has exhibited at the 2008 CharityFair exhibition in London organised by the Directory of Social Change (DSC) and this included live demonstrations of the website service. We’re pleased to report that all went well with no technical gremlins.

23rd July 2008

We are really pleased to welcome a number of new hospices who are now using the MuchLoved service including St Barnabas, St Helena and Eden Valley Hospice.

4th July 2008

The Privacy Options are now much clearer on the Tribute Guardian panel so that it is easier to choose between private (invitatation only) and public access on your tribute.

1st May 2008

Our new information literature packs are now in print and if you would like a copy please just contact us with your postal address.

28th April 2008

Bereavement UK have linked up with MuchLoved for their new website to support bereaved families.

19th April 2008

MuchLoved exhibited at the London Green Funeral Exhibition organised by the Natural Death Centre along with other green and eco-friendly funeral and bereavement items.

5th April 2008

MuchLoved is now an Associate member of SAIF (The Society of Allied & Independent Funeral Directors) and a number of Funeral Directors have recently become partners including Tovey Bros, Hearnden & Daughters, Bungard & Sons and Armstrongs Funeral Service.

25th March 2008

The Australian memorial website provider Imorial has agreed to join our code of conduct initiative www.thememorialcode.org They are our first international member and we hope that other organisations worldwide will join in our initiative.

6th March 2008

We are pleased to report that over 6,000 memorial websites have now been created through MuchLoved. Thank you for such an overwhelming response to our service.

1st March 2008

The Motor Neurone Disease Association go live today with their improved Tribute Fund programme using MuchLoved as their chosen online partner.

27th February 2008

MuchLoved has been chosen as a preferred partner to the Charities Aid Foundation for Fundraising In Memoriam and we are featured in their latest ‘My Charity’ newsletter.

20th February 2008

A number of Hospices have agreed to partner the MuchLoved initiative including Birmingham St. Mary’s, Bury Hospice, Chase Hospice for Children, Lakelands Day Care, Lindsey Lodge, Sobell House Oxford, St.Wilfrid’s Chichester and the Myton Hospices.

12th February 2008

MuchLoved have presented to a number of progressive funeral organisations such as Sentiment Funeral Planning and Native Woodland natural burial parks who have both now joined as partners.

1st February 2008

We are preparing our initiative to encourage fundraising for charity in memory of loved ones as a positive and practical response to bereavement. More information is available on our website.

22nd January 2008

We have moved server host provider after problems with our previous host. Many apologies for the recent disruption and we are confident there will be excellent uptime with our new provider.

20th December 2007

A large number of new design themes including a new ‘memories’ folder are now live on the site and accessible in your settings panel (under design options). We hope you like them.

17th December 2007

The Guardian newspaper have featured MuchLoved in relation to their memorial code initiative to ensure good ethics by all memorial website providers.

30th November 2007

It’s pretty staggering to report that 5,000 people have now created their own muchloved memorial tribute, many of whom have then chosen to maintain their tribute online for 10years using our free service or else forever using our perpetuity service.

28th November 2007

The Motor Neurone Disease Association (MNDA) have chosen to use MuchLoved to help their users create online Tribute Funds in memory of loved ones in order to help support the vital research work into this disease.

20th November 2007

New design options for all memorials are about to be completed including a number of designs in a new ‘memories’ theme as well as new designs in the sky, water and seasons themes.

14th November 2007

Our initiative to help ensure that all memorial website providers adopt good practice by establishing a mutually agreed code of ethics has now been launched. You can find out more at www.thememorialcode.org

12th November 2007

The popular women’s weekly magazine, Take A Break, has featured MuchLoved and also one of its users in an article about tribute websites.

24th October 2007

The Prince’s Trust and The Alzheimer’s Research Trust have recently become charity partners along with North London Hospice.

18th October 2007

There have now been over 4,000 websites created on muchloved since we launched the service back in March. We are just starting to look for long term sponsors to support future development of the charity. If your employer could be a suitable sponsor and you would like to recommend us, please do get in touch.

11th October 2007

A number of Tribute Guardians have asked us to display their tribute for all website visitors to be able to visit easily. A new site (The MuchLoved Remembrance Gardens) is currently in development to allow this for all tributes.

2nd October 2007

Bowel Cancer UK, Leukaemia CARE and The Arthritis Research Campaign are our latest new partners creating their own muchloved website memorial service for their clients.

24th September 2007

A special website for all our bereavement and charity partners has been launched at www.muchlovedpartners.com This website provides information about MuchLoved, the benefits of becoming a partner and how to become one.

21st September 2007

A number of new design themes relating to child and baby deaths have been added to the Style & Design options area. We are working on further themes and any ideas or suggestions are welcome.

17th September 2007

The initial website memorial code of conduct has been agreed following our initiative announced in the Summer. The code will shortly be publicised on the website www.thememorialcode.org

14th September 2007

We are pleased to report that more than 3,000 people have now set up a MuchLoved tribute since we launched the service at the start of the year.

8th September 2007

The Charity Partners section has been redesigned in response to the increasing numbers of partners. Charities who have linked up with us recently include Epilepsy Action and The Muscular Dystrophy Campaign

2nd September 2007

The Funeral Service Times have featured MuchLoved as their spotlight charity in their September issue. You can see all media and press information in our resources area.

29th August 2007

There is now a new introduction video on our MuchLoved home page (for all users with Flash Player) and some improvements to the slideshow functionality and Thoughts Gallery within everyone’s’ Tributes.

22nd August 2007

Following suggestions from users, we are starting work on improving our ‘donate to your chosen charity’ functionality so that you can easily use your tribute to raise funds for good causes in memory of your loved one.

18th August 2007

There have been some improvements in our ‘create a tribute’ process which mean that the date entry format is amended according to your location so that US users can use Month/Day/Year whilst UK and European users can use Day/Month/Year.

It is now not a requirement to enter dates of birth and/or death, so this is left up to you to add only if you wish.

9th August 2007

We now have a new resources area on our home page to provide information about arranging a funeral, helpful books and bereavement websites plus other useful information. In addition there is also now a testimonials area to display some of the many messages of support and thanks that we are receiving. Thank you for all of these.

2nd August 2007

A number of organisations have recently agreed to become MuchLoved Partners plus we are also now endorsed by the British Association of Counselling.

24th July 2007

We are pleased to announce that we are now in a position to offer to host Tributes for 10 years without any charge. This means that all bereaved people, regardless of their financial position, can easily create a website in memory of their loved one. More details can be found here.

18th July 2007

The MuchLoved home page has been updated with more information on how to use and develop your Tribute, plus answers to common questions that are asked by users.

16th July 2007

Yours magazine (Britain’s leading magazine for the over 50’s) have interviewed us for a feature in Issue 15 about how computers can make grieving easier and also the growing recognition that bereavement sites are helping people to manage grief.

4th July 2007

MuchLoved is leading a Code of Conduct initiative to ensure that all memorial website providers sign up to best practice to protect and work in the best interests of the bereaved people who use their services. This will include respecting their right to privacy and their right to control the appearance and content of their memorial sites.

20th June 2007

MuchLoved has demonstrated the Tribute service to over 200 Funeral Directors at their National Exhibition held from 15-17th June. The response at the exhibition was fantastic with many Directors enthusiastically agreeing to let their clients know about our organisation.

12th June 2007

We have some new website themes available now which you can see in your settings panel. Could we also say thanks to everyone who has been sending in such nice feedback and if you have any ideas or suggestions whatsoever, please do not hesitate to contact us.

21st May 2007

Welcoming Sally Swann as our Charity Developer. Sally will be working with other charities to help show how they can have a customised version of MuchLoved to provide as a service to their users. If you are interested in linking up with MuchLoved please do contact Sally.

2nd May 2007

All tributes now have the functionality to allow you to promote your chosen charity and to take your site visitors to its donate page to encourage charitable contributions.

24th April 2007

New website themes are now available to use including silk, parchment and pebbles. Please look in your settings panel to take a look at your new options.

15th April 2007

A number of Tribute Guardians have generously allowed us to use their tributes as public examples of how the service can be used. These are now on display from a home page link

12th April 2007

We are starting this “Latest News” section so that Tribute Guardians and Community members can be kept easily updated on all MuchLoved developments.