From Nick Wilde, Freshwater:

A Death Cafe has been held on the Isle of Wight at God's Providence House, Newport, since January 2017.

This first meeting filled one of the rooms and we have had a varying number of people most months since then.

Some come for a single meeting while others return more frequently. Meanwhile the subject of death is discussed more widely on film, TV and radio.

Last year, the film, Island, showing the work of the Mountbatten hospice created interest and a recent BBC 2 Horizon documentary, We need to talk about Death, was well received.

Also a short series of three radio programmes with the same name featuring Joan Bakewell has been on BBC Radio Four.

It's good to hear it being talked about but where do you go to meet others who want to talk too?

The facilitators of the Death Cafe felt we required a clearer focus for our discussions.

The Death Cafe movement is a free franchise and one may use the name if one signs up to to their way of doing it, an unstructured open discussion.

We felt we could be more specific about what we are to talk about each time we meet we might promote more interest.

To this end we are changing the name to Dying Matters.

Mountbatten has its Death Chat, which takes place on the first Monday of each month.

We want to provide a complement to this with a mid-week town centre gathering. Each month we will focus on a different aspect of dying and death.

In our February meeting we will be thinking creatively about funerals.

As well as tea, cake and chat we will focus on our religious or non-religious experiences of funerals and even our wishes for our own.

Dying Matters will take place at God's Providence House, St Thomas Square, Newport, on Wednesday (February 13) from 2.30pm until 4pm.