<\/p>\n
A few facts about me<\/strong> and how I came to work as a Humanist Minister.<\/p>\n The first thing to say is that I’m committed to the compassionate and human-centred values of humanism and I’m also passionate about helping people to achieve their dream wedding or to deliver a meaningful funeral ceremony on their behalf.<\/p>\n Why am I involved in delivering humanist Funerals?<\/strong><\/p>\n When my father died in 1998 we chose a humanist funeral for him as he was not a religious man. This was conducted with sensitivity (and a touch of humour) by someone who is now a colleague. That person treated us so well and was so kind and gentle I decided there and then to train for funeral ceremonies and I am now accredited by the Humanists UK to conduct them.<\/p>\n Why\u00a0do I conducting humanist Weddings?<\/strong><\/p>\n …simply because they are so powerful, joyous\u00a0and unique. Once I had completed my funeral training I went on to train for weddings, too, and this meant I was able to conduct my sister’s wedding in Wiltshire in 2012, a day neither of us will ever forget! I have been conducting weddings for almost a decade, now,\u00a0and I have a short film of myself ‘in action’ on my dedicated website, which is listed below.<\/p>\n Why do I conduct Naming ceremonies?<\/strong><\/p>\n …because naming ceremonies\u00a0are surprisingly moving and powerful and they’re often enormous fun, too! There are\u00a0any number of children involved, which guarantees a carnival atmosphere, but there are also heartfelt pledges delivered by the parents, grand-parents and mentors (or guide-parents), and this where the emotion comes in!<\/p>\n A bit of background<\/strong>: in a previous life I worked as an actor before becoming a full-time Celebrant in 2005. I’m so glad I took the decision to change the course of my life as I find it much more rewarding to help other people rather than to continually ask other people for help!<\/p>\n When not conducting ceremonies I enjoy reading, walking, motorcycling, scuba diving and writing the occasional book review.<\/p>\n Please take a peek at my Testimonials<\/strong> (if you have time), to find out a little bit more about what people make of my approach.<\/p>\n For a relaxed chat about your wedding ceremony or your funeral plans please call me on 07932 888737.<\/strong><\/p>\n You can also email me at mark@markhayfordhumanist.com<\/strong><\/p>\n I look forward to hearing from you.<\/p>\n Mark Hayford<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A few facts about me and how I came to work as a Humanist Minister. The first thing to say is that I’m committed to the compassionate and human-centred values of humanism and I’m also passionate about helping people to achieve their dream wedding or to deliver a meaningful funeral ceremony on their behalf. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/humanist.org.uk\/markhayford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/humanist.org.uk\/markhayford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/humanist.org.uk\/markhayford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humanist.org.uk\/markhayford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humanist.org.uk\/markhayford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/humanist.org.uk\/markhayford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":127,"href":"https:\/\/humanist.org.uk\/markhayford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions\/127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/humanist.org.uk\/markhayford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}