About
This year’s Education Day is packed full of presentations to:
- Ensure you’re up to date with the latest news from the profession
- Offer new ways of supporting your families
- Help you prepare for a regulated sector
- Learn about products and services to enhance your business
- Provide 6 hours of CPD
Read the agenda for the wide range of subjects and the Speakers tab for information on the experts providing advice and updates. Remember to book your Education Day places and the optional extras: dinner and accommodation as soon as possible. Click the Booking tab.
Booking
Bookings have now closed.
Venue
Leicester Marriott Hotel Grove Park, Smith Way, Leicester, LE19 1SW
Find directions on the hotel’s website. Parking is complementary.
Agenda
1These are provisional timings and subject to change.
- 0900-0930 Registration
- 0930-0935 Welcome
Ross Hickton, National President - 0935-0940 SAIFInsure – Funeral insurances update
Brian Hart, MD of SAIFInsure - 0940-1000
FSE 2025 Report
Declan Maguire, Imm. Past President
- 1000-1105 Guiding families towards meaningful goodbyes
Russell Beswick & Team, Mirable Training - 1105-1130 Understanding neurodiversity among staff and clients
Sarah Hunnable, Neurodiversity Business Coach - 1130-1145 Refreshment break and visit exhibitors
- 1145-1215 SAIF Professional Field Trips to Worsham College 2026
Craig Caldwell, National Executive Member, SAIF.
SAIF Funeral Academy CPD Modules
Declan Maguire, Immediate Past President, SAIF - 1215-1230 The funeral plan market: challenges and opportunities
Claire Zuurbier, Chair of Golden Charter - 1230-1245 An educated workforce for a regulated profession
Sean Martin, Chair of the IFD College - 12.45-1330 Lunch and exhibition visit
- 1330-1355 The mushroom coffin
Bob Hendrikx, Loop Biotech - 1355-1405 Immersive attended funeral experiences
Matt Brook, Westerleigh/Obitus tbc - 1405-1430 Beyond the funeral: trauma informed aftercare partnerships
Chaplain Ahmed Alsisi, White Rose & Bereavement leader - 1430-1545 Guiding families to meaningful goodbyes part 2
Russell Beswick & Mirable team - 1545-1630 SAIF Campaign on meaningful goodbyes
With Ross Hicton & team, Q&A; and SAIF’s Charter on standards for direct cremation - Collection of CPD certificates
For those staying, dinner at 6.30pm
- 1000-1105 Guiding families towards meaningful goodbyes
Speakers
Brian Hart, SAIF Insure
Funeral Insurance Updates
Brian will cover Insurance and risk: what you need to know when advertising your business. Brian has over 35 years of experience in the insurance industry and has worked closely with the SAIF executive, numerous presidents and the wider profession to create products and service that are aligned with the needs of the professional SAIF membership.
Guiding families towards meaningful goodbyes
Russell Beswick & Team, Mirable Training
Russell Beswick, Director/Co-Founder of Mirable Solutions is a CIPD-qualified training leader with over 18 years’ experience designing and delivering practical, high-impact learning across commercial, service, and sensitive sectors.
Miriam Belizidia, Director/Co-Founder of Mirable Solutions, has over 18 years’ experience in people development and client partnerships. She specialises in helping teams grow through thoughtful onboarding, structured training, and values-led support.
Christian Coghlan is a highly regarded trainer and consultant with a background in values-based communication and service-led sales. Before moving into training and consultancy, Chris served with the Royal Engineers in the British Army, where he developed the discipline, resilience, and structured problem-solving skills that now underpin his professional approach.
Read more about Russell, Miriam and Christian here.
Sarah Hunnable, Neurodiversity Business Coach
Understanding neurodiversity among staff and clients
Sarah Hunnable is a Neurodiversity Business Coach. Read more about Sarah here.
Craig Caldwell, National Executive Member, SAIF.
SAIF Professional Field Trips to Worsham College 2026
Craig is Vice President of Strategic Planning and Business Development at The Dodge Company. He’s also on the SAIF Executive Committee.
Declan Maguire, Immediate Past President, SAIF
SAIF Funeral Academy CPD Modules
Declan was SAIF National Executive in 2024/5 and is involved in many of SAIF’s committees as well as creator of SAIF Digital.
Claire Zuurbier, Chair, Golden Charter
The funeral plan market: challenges and opportunities
Sean Martin, Daniel Robinson & Sons Ltd
An educated workforce for a regulated profession
Sean is Chief Operating Officer at Daniel Robinson & Sons Ltd and a Fellow of SAIF.
Bob Hendrikx, Loop Biotech
The mushroom coffin
Bob Hendrikx is a Dutch bio-designer, innovator, and founder of Loop Biotech, a company that creates coffins made from mycelium, the root system of mushrooms, to help humans return to nature in the most natural way. Educated at TU Delft, with research experience at MIT Media Lab, Bob developed the Loop Living Cocoon™, a biodegradable coffin that decomposes in just 45 days and enriches the soil instead of polluting it.
His work is rooted in the belief that we must shift from being a burden on the planet to becoming a regenerative force. With global media attention from CNN, BBC, and Wired, and awards including Human of the Year 2020 by VICE and the Philips Innovation Award, Bob is a leading voice in the field of sustainable design.
Through Loop Biotech, he aims to transform the way we deal with death, turning it into a process that gives life back to the earth
Matthew Brook, Head of Partnership & Proposition, Westerleigh Group
Immersive attended funeral experiences
Matthew leads on partnerships and proposition at Westerleigh Group, one of the UK’s largest cremation and memorial providers. His focus is on developing services and experiences that genuinely support bereaved families, from creating more personalised farewell options to improving how the company works with funeral directors and partners.
Matthew is especially passionate about innovation that makes a real difference. That includes introducing immersive Super Venues, improving digital accessibility, and working with suppliers to offer better-quality and better-value products. At the heart of it all is a commitment to helping families feel supported, understood and cared for at one of the most difficult times in their lives.
Chaplain Ahmed Alsisi, White Rose & Bereavement leader
Beyond the funeral: trauma informed aftercare partnerships
Chaplain Ahmed Alsisi is the founder of White Rose Funerals and a passionate advocate for mental health and inclusive bereavement care. Since age 20, he’s championed overlooked communities—working with the Chief Coroner to advance same-day and next-day funeral access in Wales, crucial for families with faith-based needs.
Ahmed is leading initiatives to train his staff in British Sign Language, support the Deaf community, and assist families dealing with grief and trauma.
With the support of the Welsh Government, Ahmed will lead a national campaign with two key aims: to raise awareness of the needs of marginalised communities—such as the Deaf community—and to improve bereavement care by offering suicide intervention training to funeral directors across the country, expanding the reach of compassionate support.
Exhibitors
Complete Voice & Data are one of the UK’s leading voice, data and connectivity providers specifically in the areas of business mobile, unified communications, connectivity and cloud.
Ecclesiastical Planning Services work with over 850 funeral directing outlets across the country, providing a suitable home for funeral plan pre-payment funds.
With over 20 years of telecoms experience, we recognise that reliable business communications and professional IT support are critical to the daily smooth operation of every business..
The Greener Globe Funeral Standard is a sustainability audit scheme developed specifically for cemeteries, crematoria, funeral directors and suppliers.
Humanist funerals offer a personal and fitting way to say goodbye to those who have lived without religion.
Accredited training for the independent funeral profession
We grow funeral products from local mushrooms: 100% natural, biodegradable, soil-enriching and designed to empower us to become one with nature. A way for humanity to turn endings into new beginnings. Because we believe your last act should be your greatest.
Signature Aromas is a family business built on core values of excellent customer service and support. Our Directors have been involved in the industry for over 40 years, developing new techniques that have become industry leading products.
MuchLoved is the UK’s leading in-memory platform, where you can remember someone special and fundraise in their memory. We’ve helped over 500,000 bereaved people create their own personalised and free online memorial in memory of a loved one.
Here at Urns UK, we’ve spent more than a decade helping families like yours find the right memorial for their loved ones.
Media and personalisation are now a huge part of any funeral service, and we understand that you want to provide the best service possible. Everything we do is designed to help Funeral Arrangers offer families more.
We work hard within the profession to promote best practice and protect the interests of our members and their local communities.
Westerleigh Group is one of the UK’s largest independent owners and operators of crematoria and cemeteries, with over 40 sites in England, Scotland, and Wales, and which is trusted by more families than any other provider to deliver funerals for their loved ones.
With over 30 years’ experience in the funeral industry, we’re one of the UK’s largest funeral plan providers1, proudly owned by an association of independently owned funeral directors.
Avens are a specialist funeral marketing agency, helping funeral directors, funeral celebrants and other funeral businesses to attract new clients.