Death Cafe Movement and Meet-ups

A death cafe is a safe place to talk about life, death and loss.

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Death Cafes

Participants talk about how our views of death affect how we live our life, and how our experiences of life impact on our attitudes to death.

They are friendly, informal sessions. Attendees’ experience ranges widely. Some may have experienced a traumatic loss, others may have little or no experience of death. Some may be living with a life limiting conditions themselves. It doesn’t matter. Everyone is free to share or not, ask questions, tell their story, hear others’ views, listen and learn.

The concept of tea and chat was originated by Bernard Crettaz in Switerland and taken up in the UK by Jon Underwood who helped spread the idea here. Final Fling launched Scotland’s first death cafes and has run them quarterly. We’ve since moved on from Death Cafe to Death Chats.

Final Fling ran the first Death Cafe in Scotland in 2013 to mark Dying Matters Awareness Week and ran them for several years each quarter. See more about past Death Cafes.

We’ve since broadened out our events and call them Death Meet-ups.

Death Meet-Ups

Death Meet-Ups take different shapes. Sometimes they are organised as sessions to co-design bright new ideas of how experiences of death, dying and funerals can be improved; sometimes they are topic based – like discussions around memory and loss or funerals; sometimes we have experts on hand to cover specific issues; sometimes they are like a traditional Death Cafe and just an open chat session with no agenda over a cuppa and cake.

They are always friendly, informal sessions.

Attendees’ experience ranges widely. Some may have experienced a traumatic loss, others may have little or no experience of death. Some may be living with a life limiting conditions themselves. It doesn’t matter. Everyone is free to share or not, ask questions, tell their story, hear others’ views, listen and learn.

Final Fling’s Death Meet-ups are always free to attend but we always ask you to BOOK A FREE PLACE in advance – usually using Eventbrite.