If you want to engage others in thinking and talking about end of life planning, try a bit of Fling-O-Bingo to get the wheels oiled.

We use this as a way of talking about key documents next of kin will need.

We first used it at the Ideal Death Show in 2013. Recently, we shared it with participants from the health service at Byw Nawr ‘Live Now’ event for Dying Matters Awareness Week in Cardiff, in May 2017.

You can use it too to work with small groups of people… professionals and individuals.

How to use our free end of life planning tool

First, get our blank bingo card and one with answers.

You can run off copies onto card or thick paper.

Next, get people to work together in 2’s or 3’s to talk together and try and imagine all the key bits of paperwork that next of kin might need at the time of death.

There are at least 20 essential documents. We keep updating these so share ideas of new essentials… like This is Me dementia friendly guidance and Playlist for Life.

Together folks can rack their brains and jot their answers down in the blank spaces.

Now get them to mark them off. You can be the bingo caller, or put the answers up on a Powerpoint or presentation, revealing them one at a time. Get the most obvious out first, with the tricky ones left till the end. If anyone gets all 20, they should shout ‘BINGO’! To call the results ask who got 20 right. (Usually noone!) Then who got 19 answers right, 18 right, 17 right and so on.Have a small prize for the winner.

Give the group half an hour to play the game. You might take another hour to talk through. They can usefully share which things they have, which they don’t and why. You could pull this into a discussion at the end and try to find ways to make it easier to deal with the trickier stuff.

End of life planning on Final Fling

Give people a print out of the answers so they can take them home and begin to store copies or reference details (like account numbers and passwords) in their free Safe Deposit Box on Final Fling. It’s free – and remarkably easy – to do.

Social media

Wondering what to do about your social media accounts? Check out friend of Fling, James Norris and his Dead Social and Digital Legacy sites.