Our People - Tender Illawarra & Sydney
Our Community Project General Manager
Jenny Briscoe-Hough
Jenny is the driving force behind Tender Funerals. She has decades of experience in community development and believes in a strength based approach. She is the General Manager of Our Community Project and Tender Funerals Australia. She has a reputation for innovation and developing projects which support and empower communities to create a culture of help rather than harm. . Tender Funerals is the result of a community believing that funerals should be an affordable, meaningful and ultimately as much as possible healing. Tender Funerals Australia was called into being by the many communities who reached out to have a Tender funerals in their and Jenny is proud to be a part of the team which is answering their call.
Tender Illawarra & Sydney Staff Members
Amy Sagar
Funeral Director / General Manager
Amy’s career as a funeral director started in 2008. She has worked as a funeral administrator and traditional funeral director including arranging, conducting and caring for our dead in the mortuary. She truly found her passion working in the mortuary and went on to study Embalming. She is passionate about empowering families and their communities after a death has occurred and loves facilitating ceremonial washings & dressings of the deceased with their family.
Amy joined the Port Kembla community in opening Tender Funerals in 2016 as the Funeral Director and is now the manager of Tender Funerals Illawarra & Sydney.
Angela Figliuzzi
Operations Manager
Angela‘s career in the funeral industry began in 2019 as a Traditional Funeral Arranger. She was raised in the Illawarra and has a strong sense of this Community. Angela is compassionate to all those she encounters and strives to act with empathy and kindness. Angela‘s first encounter with Tender Funerals was when her family engaged their services early in her funeral career to farewell her grandfather.
Angela believes that a funeral should be personal, aligned with your loved one and where possible, healing. Tender Funerals are in line with her core values that a personalised farewell should be afforded to everybody.
Nadine Giles
Funeral Director
Nadine volunteered with Tender for 12 months in 2017. When Nadine moved to Melbourne she worked as a traditional funeral director before relocating back to the Illawarra to rejoin her family as well as our Tender Community as a Funeral Director.
Nadine is passionate about ritual, symbolism and ceremony and the peace, calm and joy these practices can bring to celebrating our lives and eventual death. Nadine supports families and their community to create the funeral experience that most suits their needs. She also brings her skills in hairdressing and beauty therapy to pamper the deceased in our care.
Lee-Ann Wein
Funeral Director
Lee-Ann has worked in the funeral industry for approximately eight years. Lee-Ann’s love of funeral liturgy and ritual came from her community experiences in Catholic Religious Life, where she witnessed beautiful community care of the dying and the dead. Here she learnt that the fullness of the funeral liturgy creates a meaningful and beautiful ritual, where the person and their soul is honoured by the community. This experience of ritual can really influence how grief unfolds for individuals and for communities.
Lee-Ann now lives a contemplative life committed to simplicity and service in the tradition of the Beguines. Her work at Tender is part of this service. Lee-Ann is currently studying to become a Spiritual Director. She holds a great love and interest in all religious faiths.
Nerida Margrie
Funeral Director
Nerida has worked in a variety of administrative and customer service roles in higher education, aged care and commercial organisations, and joined Tender in mid-2021. She has a strong sense of social justice, believing that we all deserve to be treated equally, regardless of our circumstances, finances, culture, or beliefs.
Nerida’s compassion and faith will help families and their communities to create the funeral experience that best fits with their needs
Wes Bas
Funeral Director
Wes is an Illawarra local having lived in Bulli all his life. Coming from a long and varied career in the public sector he served in the Australian Defence Force and NSW Police Force where he grew his passion for training as an Education Development Officer.
He has a passion for his communities having served on the AIDS Council of NSW board of directors and is a current volunteer member of the NSW State Emergency Service.
Wes has gained experience as a traditional funeral director completing two years with a local Illawarra funeral home; the move to Tender Funerals aligning with Wes’ strong community values.
He has a keen interest in the rich cultural diversity of the Illawarra and Sydney regions and believes in these communities taking back ownership of their customs and traditions to be able to better care for their people after death.