To celebrate Dying Matters Awareness Week we are helping to raise awareness with Londoners by running a popup shop on Camden high street over the course of the week. This is how it has unfolded  (in photos) thus far

Earling Monday morning (the popup coffee shop is ready for action)

Monday 13th May (1pm-4.30pm) - Nim Njuguna, 'Reflecting on life before death' 

Tuesday 14th May (10pm-12pm)Susan Morris, "caring for someone who is dying" - Drop in Surgery to meet a local palliative care nurse' Tuesday 14th May 10am-1pm

Tuesday (7pm - 11pm) DeadSocial's Dying Matters Awareness Week Popup Party

Wednesday, 15th May (1pm-5.30pm) Lawrence Darani “What is it about Death specifically that frightens us?” 

Wednesday, 15th May (7pm+) Death Café with Jon Underwood

Thursday 16th May (2pm-5.30pm) Dr. Patrick McDaid Thursday, "Addressing Death" 

Jon Underwood founded Death Café in order to evoke conversions on and around death.  Over the last century death has become the ‘final taboo’ in the UK and many other countries across the globe. In order to break a taboo society needs to address and speak about it. This is where Death Café steps in, boils the kettle and cuts off a slice of cake.

Death Café’s can occur anywhere. They are relaxed and informal gatherings with no set agenda or structured criteria. The only certainty is tea, coffee and cake! There have now been over 100 Death Café’s worldwide and Jon’s creation is considered ‘a movement’ rather than a brand or organization.

TONIGHT (Wednesday evening) Jon will be running a death café in London to run symbiotically and support Dying Matters Awareness Week. As always it is open to the general public and Jon’s open invitation spreads to all across London and the UK. If you are unable to attend on Wednesday be sure to keep a close eye on www.DeathCafe.com during Dying Matters Awareness week as there are a number of other Death Cafes planned up and down the country. The Death Cafe website also includes listings of each event (globally) and information on how to start and run your own Death Café.

Jon spoke on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Saturday Live’ this morning. It will be available for the next 7 days on the BBC iPlayer (This may not be available for those who live outside of the UK… but you it is well worth clicking on the link above to find out)

‘Death Café with Jon Underwood’ will be held at ‘DeadSocial’s Dying Matters Awareness Week Popup Coffee Shop. 

The full address is DeadSocial Popup Coiffe Shop, 69 Camden High Street NW1 7JL. You are welcome to arrive anytime after 6pm with it officially starting at 7pm:

Closest Tubes are Camden Town & Mornington Crescent

Dying Matters are currently running their reflective “Final Tweets” project ahead of and during the annual ‘Dying Matters Awareness Week’. To participate simply create twitter message whilst pretending that it would be the last Twitter message (tweet) that you would ever send.

Once completed use the hashtag #FinalTweets and it will be included and reviewed amongst peers and the wider twitter community. You can also send your tweets directly to Dying Matters:

•   - By email to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it with the subject line 'Final Tweets'. 
•   - By post, send your Final Tweet to: Sarah Stone, Final Tweet, Dying Matters Coalition, The Fitzpatrick Building, 188-194 York Way, London, N7 9AS.

DeadSocial will be running a pop up shop during Dying Matters Awareness week. One of the offerings provided at the space (10am-5pm Monday - Saturday) will be to have a professional video footage recorded and edited for free. The video maker and photographer Tugba Tirpan will be allocated a private area at the back of the popup shop. In this area the general public can sit down and have a video message created. Each person will decide if they want their video to be public now or if the video should only be seen once they have passed away.

Video content may include; videos to be played at the person’s funeral, videos to assist an (already written) will, final goodbye videos, videos to be played at the persons wake and/or videos created to be sent out post-death using DeadSocial.

For anyone who wants to have their ‘Final Tweets’ to be recorded and sent out on Twitter come to down and let us know. If you do not have a twitter account we will happily set one up for you in the coffee shop (or send it out on our own twitter account, it’s up to you).

Whatever you would like to have filmed come down to the popup coffee shop at 69 Camden High Steeet between 10am-5pm and speak to Tugba, she will ensure that you have a fantastic video.

More about #FinalTweets can be read on http://www.dyingmatters.org/page/final-tweets

More about DeadSocial's Popup Coffee Shop: http://www.deadsoci.al/blog/65-dying-matters-2013 

Each afternoon next week a different great speaker will come into the Dying Matters Pop Up coffee shop to pass on their words of wisdom. There will also be two evening events in the space during the course of the week (13th-19th May). Each morning a number of short films by Dying Matters will be played. Tea & coffee served all day :)

• Nim Njuguna, 'Reflecting on life before death' Monday 13th May  (1pm-4.30pm)

Nim Njuguna PhD, is a practicing Quaker in fellowship with Pinner Baptist Church as a visiting preacher. He is a former chaplain of The Church of the Holy Carpenter in East London and associate chaplain at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge. He has worked in Vienna with religious refugees, in Khartoum with Sudan Council of Churches, in Somaliland with community groups and in Scotland as mental health counselor. He teaches Film Appreciation at the Mary Ward Centre and runs courses at Camden MIND on topics such as; forgiving myself and others, self –compassion etc. and he is a visiting tutor at Hackney Community College in East London. Nim takes students and young people to his native country of Kenya to work among peasant farmers through a charity he set up. (nectuk.org)

• (NEW) Susan Morris, "caring for someone who is dying" - Drop in Surgery to meet a local palliative care nurse' Tuesday 14th May 10am-1pm

Susan Morris is a Palliative Care Clinical Nurse Specialist, Camden Palliative Care Team and cares for people with an advanced illness or who are dying.

The Palliative Care Team’s aim is to enable patients and families to live life as fully as possible, focussing on what is important to them. “We are here to support patients and their family, friends and carers at what can be a distressing time. We aim to support their emotional, practical and spiritual needs and enable them to die in comfort, with dignity and the surroundings of their choice.”

Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust, Camden Provider Services Camden, Islington ELiPSe and UCLH & HCA Palliative Care Service

•  Leverton & Sons, ‘Ask the funeral director' Tuesday 14th May (1pm-6pm)

Richard Putt and Lori MacKellar will be on hand on Tuesday afternoon to answer any questions that you may have regarding funerals and how to serve those who are approaching the end their life.

Leverton & Sons have been an Independent Funeral Directors since 1789. They aim to be highly flexible as funeral directors and to be led entirely by the wishes of their clients.  They serve all creeds and cultures and increasingly encounter people with highly personal and creative ways of coping with death.  As a family and throughout the company they continue to be educated and inspired by the life stories of those who have died and the personalities of those who instruct them.

Levertons are members of the Society of Allied and Independent Funeral Directors; National Selected Morticians; Selected Independent Funeral Directors; the Association of Green Funeral Directors.  Recommended by the Natural Death Centre and The Good Funeral Guide.

• DeadSocial's 'Dying Matters Awareness Week Popup coffee shop' & UK launch party Tuesday 14th May (7pm+)

An evening of music and discussion on the second day of Dying Matters Awareness Week 2013. This will also serve as the DeadSocial UK Launch Party Tickets for this one event need to be reserved in advanced. They are of course free but require reserving by registering here

• Lawrence Darani “What is it about Death specifically that frightens us?” Wednesday, 15th May (1pm-5.30pm)

The areas addressed by Lawrence will include:

• - How do we want to live on? How can the 'awareness' of Death enrich us?
• - How do we support others through Death?
• - Approaching our own death through Rippling & Modeling
• - Exploring new ways of 'living on' after Death?

Lawrence used to teach counselling at Barking College and is a fully qualified Adult Education Teacher. Lawrence recently worked as a Community Worker and last year ran this course for professionals and members of the public in Barking & Dagenham. Lawrence has also ran a series of Philosophy workshops with older people on Community Philosophy .

• Death Café with Jon Underwood Wednesday, 15th May (7pm+)  

At a Death Cafe people, often strangers, gather to eat cake, drink tea and discuss death. The objective of Death Cafe is to increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives.

There is no agenda, with discussion led by the group. This creates a relaxed atmosphere where people are free to say whatever they want to. The quality of the dialogue is frequently exceptional. Death Cafes are discussions about death that adhere to the following principles:

- On a not for profit basis: this event is free!

- In an accessible, respectful and confidential space, free of discrimination, where people can express their views safely

- With no intention of leading participants towards any particular conclusion, product or course of action

- Alongside refreshing drinks and nourishing food – and cake

More information about the Death Cafe movement can be found at www.DeathCafe.com

• Dr. Patrick McDaid Thursday,  "Addressing Death" Thursday 16th May (2pm-5.30pm)

Dr. Patrick McDaid (MBChB Dip.PallMed MRCGP)  is a practicing Palliative and End of Life Doctor in Hampsted. He is also the Macmillan Palliative Care GP Facilitator for Camden and Islington. Dr. Patrick McDaid will be giving a presentation and answering all questions that are evoked during the presentation.

Dr. Patrick McDaid's role in Camden and Islington over the last several years have included the following

- Establishing a Palliative Care Drug Box, out of hours service supplemented by Palliative Care for Adults-Guidance for Primary Care produced in liaison with a local palliative Care consultant.  The idea is that people is that people do not have to go to hospital to have their symptoms controlled if they are dying.

- Developing the  attached quick guide, focusing on a common sense approach to identifying those patients who might be in their last year of life or benefit form being on a “Palliative and supportive care register” at their GP surgery.

- Drawing on working experiences produced the Tips for GPs for Advance Care Planning which was subsequently posted on the National end of life Care for Adults Website and referenced as an example of good practice in the Find your 1% GP Pack. The latter is a national campaign by Dying matters to support GPs to find (before they die) the 1% of their patients who die each year.

- Supporting a peer educator project run by gentle dusk training volunteers as advocates around End of Life issues. They have just started linking these with a small amount of GP surgeries across North Central London (Barnet, Enfield Camden Islington and Haringey) so they can support patients in thinking thourgh and documenting their wishes for their  End of Life Care.

- Working with CMC (Co-ordinate my Care). This is an electronic register that is being rolled out across London for the storage of their End of Life Care plans, so that details are immediately to hand for whoever might need them be it ambulance services, out of hours GP etc

- Networking with like minded colleagues. In particular during the course of this year visiting most of the GP practices in Camden and Islington to discuss with them their approach to people who have died/might be in their last year of life

•  Emily Engel “Living Wills (Advance Decision)” Friday 17th May (1pm-5.30pm)

Emily will be running a workshop on Living Wills.  Living will’s allow you to indicate that you wish to refuse certain types of medical treatment, should you be unable to make or communicate a decision about your treatment in the future. This  workshop will also include funeral planning.

Emily is a retired social worker who also worked for ten years with families affected by terminal illness. This often required Emily to help assist parents plan for their children's future care as well as for their own needs. She is now very interested in the problem of funeral debt (funeral poverty) and has  been carrying out  research with Citizens Advice Bureau, with a view to developing policies to address this growing problem.

Emily’s workshops will last for two hours and will run one starting at 1pm and another at 3pm 

The 'Dying Matters Pop up Coffee Shop' is located at: The Collective Pop Up, 69 Camden High Street, London NW1 7JL. It runs from  (13th-19th May 2013)