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The ICCM Journal | Spring 2021 | V89 No. 1
recycling of metals £10 million thank you’s The ICCM is proud to announce that the Recycling of Metals scheme has reached the £10 million mark for funds donated to bereavement related charities. This follows a record-breaking round of 121 nominations in November 2020 resulting in £1,210,000 being donated to good causes around the UK. In terms of what £1,210,000 actually looks like in paperwork, the picture right should give a good example – somewhere under that is a table! The ICCM Recycling of Metals scheme was introduced in 2007, and has been successfully run since then in partnership with Orthometals BV. To demonstrate the difference in scale from the first round of nominations to the latest one, here is the highly detailed table of the first set of awards made on 31st March 2007 – when we went, wow we have paid out £15,000 and we were worried about favouring one cause over another. 31/03/2007 31/03/2007 31/03/2007 31/03/2007 31/03/2007
7009 7010 7011 7012 7013
CRUSE - recycling money BCET - recycling money SANDS - recycling money MacMillan Nurses - recycling money The Hospice Movement - recycling money
7500 3000 1500 1500 1500 £15,000.00
There were 8 nominations in that round from the initial scheme members. Replace with Compare that to the 121 received in November and you’ll get a good idea of how much the scheme has grown. It took 8 rounds of requests and 5 years to manage to get that many nominations to begin with. Now we have got to the point where we have had 1,784 single requests for funds from all scheme members over the years. I think its useful at this time to mention, and de-bunk some of the possible misconceptions, on how funds are awarded. Only members who have donated funds in the last collection round can nominate. Nope - All scheme members may nominate in each round. Scheme members funds are allocated by the amount they have donated each round. Each scheme member receives an equal award from the total pot of funds – we batch rounds to ensure there is a large amount to distribute each time. No scheme member ever, or ever will, receive a share based on their metal’s donations, as this will vary so much it is unworkable. The ICCM Board decide which charities are suitable and if not, the crematoria cannot receive funds. Every single suitable charity receives a share. If the nominated cause is outside the criteria, we would ask for a different one quickly to ensure a nomination. The ICCM Board do verify the causes. A charity that has been awarded funds in the past, as long as it is still going, will receive funds again. Any new nominations will be checked by their description and if there are queries these can be resolved to ensure funds are going to the core of the scheme’s aim. Over the last 14 years the scheme has managed to donate a total £10,176,026 to 525 different charities. We have also arranged for large reusable presentation cheques to be sent to a crematorium where they are unable to get them from their own council or for other reasons. This has caused an amount of amusement, especially when the cheque printing company asked me why they were sending cheques off to crematoria. An example of one is handily modelled right.
