Angela Maughan
East Perthshire-based Angela Maughan is an Ordained Celebrant and Co-founder of the Open Sanctuary. She has officiated hundreds of bespoke and personal ceremonies over the last eight years. Angela works with families and couples, creating their perfect ceremony. She specialises funerals, celebration of life and wedding ceremonies. She is also a qualified complementary therapist and uses her knowledge to help people to be the very best they can be.
Getting started
Angela was a senior-level nurse for many years before leaving to train as a homoeopath. She wanted to change her career direction in order to allow her to become a stay-at-home mum as paying for childcare was becoming prohibitively expensive. She was first introduced to homoeopathy by a colleague, she spent four years training and began practising complementary therapies in 2006. She has since gone onto train as a Bio Energy Therapist and Silent Counsellor, and she can train others to be therapist in Bio Energy and Silent Counselling.
She says that through her new profession, she went on to meet a homoeopath who was also a minister, commenting: “As a homoeopath, you look at a person’s physical, mental and emotional wellbeing - and she brought in an additional spiritual element which I found really interesting.”
The enterprise journey
Angela went on to become ordained herself in 2013. A friend asked her to do a funeral service and she says everything “grew from that”. She now conducts legal wedding ceremonies and thoughtful and respectful funerals, reflecting the beliefs and wishes of families.
As an independent minister who is not affiliated with any particular religion or belief system, Angela can perform non-religious ceremonies, or ceremonies with elements of more than one religion if people from different faiths are marrying for example.
She says: “Because I am legally licensed, I can conduct weddings anywhere in Scotland, wherever a couple wishes to get married I can do it – whether that is their back garden, on a beach, in a barn or a hotel. Angela shared with us that she does love a higher end hotel or romantic Scottish castle, as she loves to get dressed up for the occasion.
“I also carry out funeral services to suit everyone’s wishes, whether that is in a crematorium or at a graveside, working with families to create ceremonies that honour the life and death of the person who has died, and providing an after-care service that is often forgotten about.”
Angela has continued to learn and in 2021 she trained as a Celebrant Plus, she is an active member with the charity, Pushing up the Daisies. 2021 saw Angela become a founder member of Coffin Club Caledonia, a charity that runs education sessions with other experts, funeral directors, soul midwives, Cruse, Natural Burial Grounds and the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification.
Angela also talks about her roles as a celebrant. These sessions are about demystifying death and funeral arrangements, sharing information so that individuals can make an informed choice about how they would like to be remembered and how they would like their funeral to be.
“People don’t always realise that they have options and I think it is important to get that message out there.”
Angela also trains and mentors other community ministers and celebrants. She feels strongly that is it about community over competition.
The Pandemic was a difficult time for Angela. “There was a time when we thought that families would not be able to attend the funeral service of a loved one, a group of local celebrants formed a peer group and we met weekly via zoom supporting each other, keeping up to date with the ever-changing guidelines. We pooled knowledge and resources and we developed online zoom ceremonies just in case. We have used them on occasion, but thankfully even though numbers were restricted, and funeral teas weren’t allowed, I did my very best to continue to support families via zoom calls and telephone calls.
“Weddings were stopped for a period of time; when they restarted, they were very limited in numbers, due to heavy restrictions. Thankfully I have been able to accommodate all of my postponed couples and 2022 is my busiest year yet. I am very grateful that my business survived, as many didn’t.”
Support
Angela says that community-based enterprise support organisation GrowBiz has been a great resource for her over the years, particularly as its approach to providing support has enabled her to “dip in and out” as and when she has needed the various services it provides. She also credits her friends and family, especially her children, with “inspiring and helping” her.
She is firmly of the belief that making mistakes is the way people learn and says that in the past her biggest mistake was not believing in herself.
Now though, she says: “Personally and professionally there have been some difficult times but my biggest achievement to date is that I just dust myself off and keep going. I have an inner strength that I didn’t recognise until it was pointed out to me last year. I know now how to ask for help and advice and where to seek it.”
Looking to the future
Angela continues to grow her business and is completing a course in Spiritual Direction. She is keen to become the go to celebrant in the area. Nearly fully booked for 2022 she continues to create relationships with venues and professionals within the funeral industry. She is looking to outsource her social media and web pages, to be able to do what she loves, talking to people, creating and officiating ceremonies.
And on the therapy side of her business, she is continuing to see clients and is aiming to start new training courses to train people to become Bio Energy therapists and Silent Counsellors.
