Main Events

This Valentine’s weekend, we explored the love that builds the type of communities, friendships and resilience we cherish at Sunday Assembly London.

Guest speaker: Adela Apetroaia

Adela is a senior lecturer and psychotherapist known as the Love Doctress. She explores how love shows up in all forms: not just romance, but in friendship, community, creativity and self-acceptance.

Drawing on years of experience in psychology, bodywork and relational coaching, Adela shared practical insights on how we can build more honest, heart-led connections in a time of increasing disconnection.

Guest poet: Morwenna James

We love welcoming new speakers and poets to our stage, and we also love welcoming back familiar voices like Morwenna. She’s a spoken word artist and published poet who uses radical honesty and self-deprecation to explore universal themes with a playful, humorous slant.

This time, Morwenna entertained us with Mother Time, about her experience of motherhood among other mothers. Watch Morwenna’s performance on Instagram

Our singalongs

As usual, there were four pop songs performed by our Sunday Assembly London band and reflecting today’s themes.

• Lovefool – The Cardigans
• You Can’t Hurry Love – The Supremes
• Kiss from A Rose – Seal
• I Want To Know What Love Is – Foreigner

The lyrics were projected on screen and everyone was welcome to sing (and dance) along.

About Sunday Assembly London

Sunday Assembly London is your regular and reliable stop for a welcoming, accessible and inspiring Sunday community, where you can hear talks and poetry, sing songs and make new friends.

Stay after for tea, biscuits, and chat in the Backyard Comedy Club. Then join us for a local meal, picnic, or a drink and card games at the pub.

→ Our next assembly: You Matter… Really!, 1st March
← Our previous assembly: Hidden London, Hidden Lives: Homelessness Revisited, 1st February

Homelessness can happen to anyone. Redundancy, relationship breakdown, illness or a sudden change in circumstance can turn even a stable life upside down. During these winter months, when cold, isolation and vulnerability intensify, the reality of homelessness becomes even more concerning.

Guest speaker: Jasmine Awad

Jasmine Awad is CEO of Unseen Tours, an award-winning social enterprise offering alternative walking tours of London led by people with lived experience of homelessness. Their guides share personal stories and hidden histories from some of London’s most vibrant neighbourhoods, inviting us to rethink what it truly means to be homeless.

By creating opportunities for connection with homeless and formerly homeless individuals, Unseen Tours helps give visibility and a voice to those who are so often unseen and unheard. 

Book an Unseen Tour here

Our singalongs

As usual, there were four pop songs performed by our Sunday Assembly London band and reflecting today’s themes.

• These Boots are Made for Walking – Nancy Sinatra
• Walk of Life – Dire Straits
• Walking Away – Craig David
• Waterloo Sunset – The Kinks

→ Our next assembly: The Love Doctress Is In!, 15th February
← Our previous assembly: Kicking off Change, 18th January

Guest speaker: Jude Geoghegan

An inspiring talk from footballer and coach Jude Geoghegan, national winner of the Disability Pathway Coach of the Year award 2025.

With personal experience of spina bifida and an extraordinary story of resilience, Jude has created inclusive football opportunities for young people with disabilities. He is currently an ambassador for BBC Children in Need.

Jude shared how sport changed his life and how coaching became his platform for the kind of community change we love to support here at Sunday Assembly London!

Guest poet: Leilah King

Bringing us her own unique perspective on the world of football, Leilah is a half-Iranian queer footballer and coach, mental health advocate and stand-up poet.

Our singalongs

As usual, there were four pop songs performed by our Sunday Assembly London band. They reflected today’s theme by being songs often sung at, or adapted for, sporting events.

• Three Lions – Lightning Seeds, David Baddiel and Frank Skinner
• I Predict a Riot – Kaiser Chiefs
• Freed from Desire – Gala
• Sweet Caroline – Neil Diamond

The lyrics were projected on screen and everyone was welcome to sing (and dance) along.

This slide from Freed From Desire has gone down in Sunday Assembly London history:

About Sunday Assembly London

Sunday Assembly London is your regular and reliable stop for a welcoming, accessible and inspiring Sunday community, where you can hear talks and poetry, sing songs and make new friends.

Stay after for tea, biscuits, and chat in the Backyard Comedy Club. Then join us for a local meal, picnic, or a drink and card games at the pub.

→ Our next assembly: Hidden London, Hidden Lives: Homelessness Revisited, 1st February
← Our previous assembly: Adding Creativity into Everyday Life, 4th January

Happy New Year and Happy Birth-month to Sunday Assembly London! (Our first assembly was in January 2013.)

Many of us start each new year with big plans for a new creative hobby. Pottery classes and embroidery workshops fill up quickly, but for many people their new hobbies end up being one off experiences rather than lifelong creative pursuits.

Being creative is not just about becoming really skilled in knitting or drawing, or some other craft. It’s a way of making decisions and coming up with solutions to problems. There is plenty of research suggesting that being in the habit of small scale creativity stimulates multiple areas of the brain, promoting better memory, focus and problem-solving skills.

Our guest speaker: Hanna Finn

Sunday Assembly London’s own Hanna Finn has spent decades developing her skills in crochet, embroidery, weaving, baking, hat making and many other creative pursuits, and also regularly arranges her dinner to resemble a face.

Hanna took us through the kind of creative activities anyone can incorporate into their everyday life without spending any money or taking hours to master.

Birthday cake

We invited all the bakers in the Sunday Assembly London community to bake us a birthday cake and bring it along.

Those who were more King Alfred than Mary Berry were encouraged to give us a charitable donation in honour of our birthday and help yourself to what’s on offer!

Our singalongs

‘As usual, there will be four pop songs performed by our Sunday Assembly London band and reflecting today’s themes. You’ll find out which ones at the assembly, or you may spot clues on our social media closer to the time.

The lyrics will be projected on screen and everyone’s welcome to sing (and dance) along.’

The songs were

• Celebration – Kool & The Gang
• Teenage Kicks – The Undertones
• One Day Like This – Elbow
• Teenage Dirtbag – Wheatus

About Sunday Assembly London

Sunday Assembly London is your regular and reliable stop for a welcoming, accessible and inspiring Sunday community, where you can hear talks and poetry, sing songs and make new friends.

Stay after for tea, biscuits, and chat in the Backyard Comedy Club. Then join us for a local meal, picnic, or a drink and card games at the pub.

→ Our next assembly: Kicking off Change, 18th January
← Our previous assembly: Yule Never Believe It: Rational Rituals and Secular Ceremonies, 21st December

And coming up in February…

1st: Hidden London, Hidden Lives: Homelessness Revisited

15th: Valentine’s Special: The Love Doctress in the House!

As a non-religious community with a history of big festive pop singalongs (Yule Rock), we know how meaningful Christmas is to so many people. What if we marked other points in the year with the same level of ritual? What traditions could we revive or create? Today’s Winter Solstice was the ideal time to explore it.

Guest speaker: Alan Gregan

Alan is a long-standing member of the Sunday Assembly London community, an atheist physics teacher and founder of the Fountayne Fire Society. What started as folk songs round a bonfire has since swelled into elaborate ceremonies to mark solstices, equinoxes and other major moments.

Our singalongs

As usual, there were four pop songs performed by our Sunday Assembly London band. It’s that time of year, and our Yule Rock 2025 spectacular was fresh in our minds, so we joined in on some festive favourites.

• Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End) – The Darkness

• I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday – Wizzard

• Stay Another Day – East 17

• Merry Xmas Everybody – Slade

As always, the lyrics were projected on screen and everyone was welcome to sing (and dance) along.

About Sunday Assembly London

Sunday Assembly London is your regular and reliable stop for a welcoming, accessible and inspiring Sunday community, where you can hear talks and poetry, sing songs and make new friends.

Stay after for tea, biscuits, and chat in the Backyard Comedy Club. Then join us for a local meal, picnic, or a drink and card games at the pub.

→ Our next assembly: Adding Creativity into Everyday Life, 4th January
← Our previous assembly: The Sound of Movement, 7th December

From Christmas playlists in every café to the festive hum of the high-street, sound seems to move all around us at this time of year. 

Understanding how we experience sound in space goes far beyond the mechanics of the ear. But how do our brains make sense of it all? This ‘Sound Day Assembly’ was an opportunity to find out.

Our guest speaker: Tommaso Perego

Dr Perego is a composer, sound designer and senior lecturer at the University of East London. His research explores sonic movement; how we perceive sound in motion and space and how that shapes everything from performance and architecture to multimedia and art.

He gave us a playful exploration of sound, space and perception and we discovered why even the Christmas jingles that chase us through the shops can tell us something fascinating about being human.

Our guest poet: Yvonne Murray

Yvonne is a Murray poet, inspirational motivator and author who loves to manipulate words into stories, hurts into lessons and to empathise with those who share similar paths.

When Yvonne joined us in September, she moved us with her imagery and empathy. One of her poems was specially written for our assembly and you can watch a video on Yvonne’s Instagram.

Our singalongs

As usual, there were four pop songs performed by our Sunday Assembly London band and reflecting today’s theme.

• Shut Up and Dance – Walk the Moon
• Sound of the Underground – Girls Aloud
• Footloose – Kenny Loggins
• Don’t Stop Movin’ – S Club 7

The lyrics were projected on screen, with everyone welcome to sing (and dance) along.

Winter Fayre

We invited our community to display (and sell if they wanted) their creations at our Winter Fayre. The stalls were open either side of this assembly i.e. 10:20 to 11am, 12:15 to 1pm.

Thank you to all our makers – from cards and crocheted toys to games and hats – and to all our shoppers!

About Sunday Assembly London

Sunday Assembly London is your regular and reliable stop for a welcoming, accessible and inspiring Sunday community, where you can hear talks and poetry, sing songs and make new friends.

Stay after for tea, biscuits, and chat in the Backyard Comedy Club. Then join us for a local meal, picnic, or a drink and card games at the pub.

→ Our next assembly: Yule Never Believe It: Rational Rituals and Secular Ceremonies, 21st December
← Our previous assembly: De-Masking Masculinity, 16th November

From Hollywood heroes to social media influencers, our culture today is full of mixed messages about what it means to be a man. These myths of toughness, dominance and emotional silence have shaped generations and left many men disconnected from themselves and others.

By unpicking these stories, we can live more thoughtfully and supportively.

Our guest speaker: Kris Genijn

Kris Genijn leads De-Masking Masculinity workshops at transformational festivals like Medicine, Nowhere and Burning Nest. He blends humour, vulnerability and cultural critique to ask: what have we lost in trying to “man up”?

Kris invited us to consider how tenderness, play and presence can be reclaimed as strengths, helping us move beyond stereotypes.

He also led us through a series of energy alchemy exercises: using breathing and movement to help us shed our inhibitions and release our energy.

Our singalongs

As usual, there were four pop songs performed by our Sunday Assembly London band and reflecting today’s theme of masculine identity.

• Piano Man – Billy Joel
• The One and Only – Chesney Hawkes
• Father and Son – Cat Stevens (Yusuf)
• All These Things that I’ve Done – The Killers

As always, the lyrics were projected on screen and everyone was welcome to sing (and dance) along.

Thank you to our band for adding versality to virtuosity, with multiple lead vocalists and instrumentals.

About Sunday Assembly London

Sunday Assembly London is your regular and reliable stop for a welcoming, accessible and inspiring Sunday community, where you can hear talks and poetry, sing songs and make new friends.

Stay after for tea, biscuits, and chat in the Backyard Comedy Club. Then join us for a local meal, picnic, or a drink and card games at the pub.

→ Our next assembly: The Sound of Movement, 7th December
← Our previous assembly: Keep Calm and Carry On: Connection Through Our Shared Humanity, 2nd November

Stress touches every one of us – shaping our health, our relationships, and the way we experience daily life.

Our guest speaker: Neil Shah

Ahead of National Stress Awareness Day on 5th November, we welcomed Neil Shah, founder of the Stress Management Society and a leading voice on resilience and wellbeing.

Neil is the driving force behind Stress Awareness Month, a national campaign raising awareness of the impact of stress and how we can manage it together. His mission: to empower people to live happier, healthier lives.

Neil explained how his own mental health experiences have motivated his work, and how suicide rates and stress have increased in recent years as community cohesion has decreased. He also gave the first public performance of a poem on these themes, expressing how what we may see as breakages are ways to let the light in.

We were also treated to a performance by the newly formed Sunday Assembly London choir. Following their rehearsal on 22 October, they performed Focus Is Power by Self Esteem.

Our songs

As usual, there were four pop songs performed by our Sunday Assembly London band. They had lyrics reflecting today’s theme.

• Three Little Birds – Bob Marley and The Wailers
• Hand In My Pocket – Alanis Morrissette
• I’ll Stand By You – Pretenders
• Don’t Stop – Fleetwood Mac

About Sunday Assembly London

Sunday Assembly London is your regular and reliable stop for a welcoming, accessible and inspiring Sunday community, where you can hear talks and poetry, sing songs and make new friends.

Stay after for tea, biscuits, and chat in the Backyard Comedy Club. Then join us for a local meal, picnic, or a drink and card games at the pub.

→ Our next assembly: De-Masking Masculinity, 16th November
← Our previous assembly: Colours of Our Mind: The Science of Synaesthesia, 19th October