Story: Death and dying

Personalised, do-it-yourself coffins became the project of the Coffin Club in 2010. A group of older people, all members of the Rotorua branch of the University of the Third Age, decided to build and decorate their own coffins. They ordered the wood, cut it into shape, assembled the coffins and devised the best strategy for securing the handles. They got most fun out of painting and decorating the coffins in ways that represented their personalities. The coffins cost much less to build than the caskets sold by funeral directors, but the point of the activity was not to save money but to make totally individual coffins.