DIY coffin club seeks spot to RIP

FINISHING TOUCH: David and Catherine McKibbin of the Tauranga Coffin Club with an example of the artistry that some members put into their final resting place.PHOTO/GEORGE NOVAK

A club offering a haven of companionship and creativity for people wanting to create their own coffins is desperately seeking a well located Tauranga workshop for one morning a week.

Tauranga Coffin Club was in recess until Catherine and David McKibbin of Omanawa decided it was a community service that needed to be filled.

But their rural home on Omanawa Rd meant that although the McKibbins' attempt to revive the club attracted a lot of interest, few people were prepared to make the trip to their workshop.

"We are getting far more inquiries than bums on seats. We are a little bit too far out."

Inspired by what they had seen at the Rotorua Coffin Club, the McKibbins decided they needed to bring the workshop into town. The problem was where.

After unsuccessful approaches to several churches and the Tauranga City Council which they hoped would find them space in a hall or the Historic Village, the McKibbins decided to go public with their quest.

Mrs McKibbin said that ideally it needed to be centrally located and on a bus route. "Maybe part of a workshop that people were prepared to put aside for one morning a week."

The motivation to reform the club was based partly on the opportunity for people to make their own coffins at an affordable price.

She said it meant that people could do something different by painting and decorating their coffin themselves. "They put their own life into it, literally."

However, the main motivation was the camaraderie and support that they witnessed at Rotorua. Some members were obviously going to die soon while others were making their coffins well in advance.

Mrs McKibbin said it was a very supportive and family atmosphere in the workshop. For some people whose partners had died and children left home, the mornings were a chance for a chat and companionship. They returned even after they had finished their coffins to help out or for a chat.

And those whose lives had a finite term could talk about it with others facing the same challenge. "There is a really big community aspect to it. It is as much about this support thing," she said.

Rotorua was getting 30 or 40 people along to their mornings and she was sure that Tauranga could at least match that if they found the right location. Membership in Rotorua was split 50/50 between men and women.

The couple revived the Tauranga club four months ago.

"You shouldn't pay the earth to leave it," Mr McKibbin, a cabinet maker, said.

He makes the coffin kitsets and assembles them if that's what members wanted. Alternatively people could put the coffin together themselves before tackling the more creative job of lining, painting and giving the coffin their own personal touches.

Although he sells the kitsets around New Zealand, he only covers his costs for club members, charging $640 - a saving of about $860 on the cheapest commercial alternative elsewhere in the marketplace, he said.

Club members could trim costs by a further couple of hundred dollars by lining and painting the coffin themselves, before applying their own touches.