Not just Sunday Assemblies

Did you know that some animals hibernate in summer?* That wouldn’t suit us at Sunday Assembly London. While our assemblies were taking a break in August, we had an array of Sunday events to keep us connected.

Sunday 3rd August: picnic; ice cream crawl

At 12pm, we got together in Lincoln’s Inn Fields (near Holborn Tube station) for a bring-your-own picnic lunch.

Then we walked a route around London to sample a series of ice cream treats. We had a delightful ice cream crawl in September 2024 and couldn’t wait to do it again.

We met at 3pm opposite Kentish Town Station (Tube – Northern line; the National Rail Thameslink station is next door) at 3pm. Anyone who wanted to skip straight to dessert was welcome to come along without being at the picnic first!

Sunday 10th August: Lido swimming

A refreshing swim at the Serpentine Lido.

Sunday 17th August: picnic; art walk

At 12pm, we were back at Lincoln’s Inn Fields for another bring-your-own picnic lunch.

We enjoyed the “world turned upside down” near LSE and the Wellcome Collection’s current inclusive exhibitions are fantastic.

Saturday 30th August: walking adventure in Box Hill, Surrey

Emily ran a very special event for those of us wanting to adventure a little bit further afield than Central London.

Meeting at Box Hill & Westhumble station at 12:15pm, we embarked on a 5 mile walk.

• Moderate difficulty – see National Trust classification
• Dogs and Children welcome – we go at a leisurely pace

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/surrey/box-hill/box-hill-juniper-top-circular-walk

As we said beforehand: ‘We’d love as many people as possible to join us for some or all of these activities, even if you’ve never been to a Sunday Assembly before. We know it’s not always easy to make and keep connections in London, so we’re waiting to welcome you!’

If you want to find out more about our not-just-assemblies events, email Tanya at community@sundayassembly.com. Or, as with our assemblies, just turn up!

See you in August. *Aestivation? We don’t know the meaning of the word…

→ Our next assembly: Fight the Good Fight: How to Have Conflict, 7th September
← Our previous assembly: Conversations on Kindness: How the Power of Kindness can Change the World, 20th July

Article Club is where the Sunday Assembly London community read a diverse range of articles, share them with like-minded people and deal with our anxiety that we aren’t reading books.

This was our 71st meeting but it’s never too late to join! Just like at our assemblies, we love welcoming new members and their unique opinions.

How Article Club works

1. We meet every six weeks or so in the National Theatre building in Central London by the river. We go for the round seats in the Lyttelton Theatre bar on the first floor.

2. We vote in advance and pick two articles from a short list to read before we meet. Usually one relates to politics/current affairs and the other to history, culture or science.

Our 7th August articles:

3. We talk about each one for around half an hour. The beauty of Article Club is that we can think more deeply about the broader themes of a topic, and how well the article gets to grips with them.

4. We each give a score out of 10 for the articles that have been discussed.

5. We set the date for the next Article Club and sometimes adjourn to the pub.

Our next Article Club will be on Thursday 18th September at 7:30pm.

And to meet more of the Sunday Assembly London community while learning about a new or familiar topic, you’re always welcome at our Sunday Assemblies too!

Thanks to everyone who joined us after our Dolphins assembly on 15th June for lunch. We did it again after our Pride assembly on 6th July! 

In honour of our speaker Carla Ecola and their topic, the UK’s first LGBTIQ+ shelter, our lunch venue was Love Shack. Right up the road from Sunday Assembly London, Love Shack is a wonderfully welcoming vegan restaurant that recently joined the Safe Space London directory of trans-friendly businesses.

We had one of our biggest Lunch Club turnouts in a while! Thanks to everyone who joined us to celebrate our community, the LGBTIQ+ community and the local East London community.

With so many delicious food and drink options, we’re looking forward to our next visit already!

Article Club is where the Sunday Assembly London community read a diverse range of articles, share them with like-minded people and deal with our anxiety that we aren’t reading books.

This was our 70th meeting but it’s never too late to join! Just like at our assemblies, we love welcoming new members and their unique opinions.

How Article Club works

1. We meet every six weeks or so in the National Theatre building in Central London by the river. We go for the round seats in the Lyttelton Theatre bar on the first floor.

2. We vote in advance and pick two articles from a short list to read before we meet. Usually one relates to politics/current affairs and the other to history, culture or science. Our chosen articles this time were:

All eyes are on Reform right now – but why are they given so much influence?
Zoe Williams, The Guardian, 21st April 2025
‘A strong progressive vote in local elections will be written off as random or outlying, while rightwing insurgency is considered to indicate some fundamental truth’

The rise and fall of peer review
Adam Mastroianni, Experimental History 13th December 2022
‘Why the greatest scientific experiment in history failed, and why that’s a great thing’

3. We talk about each one for around half an hour. The beauty of Article Club is that we can think more deeply about the broader themes of a topic, and how well the article gets to grips with them.

4. We each give a score out of 10 for the articles that have been discussed.

5. We set the date for the next Article Club (if we hadn’t already) and sometimes adjourn to the pub.

Our next two Article Clubs will be:

• Thursday 7 August at 7:30pm
• Thursday 18 September at 7:30pm

To meet more of the Sunday Assembly London community while learning about a new or familiar topic, you’re always welcome at our Sunday Assemblies too!

Article Club is where the Sunday Assembly London community read a diverse range of articles, share them with like-minded people and deal with our anxiety that we aren’t reading books.

This was our 69th meeting but it’s never too late to join! Just like at our assemblies, we love welcoming new members and their unique opinions.

It was also the first meeting after Article Club’s 10th anniversary (10th May 2025), so thank you to everyone who joined us as we embark on our next decade!

The two articles we discussed

New York’s Promising Experiment in Making the Subways Safer
Nicole Gelinas – New York Times, 14 August 2024

Why public schoolboys like me and Boris Johnson aren’t fit to run our country
Richard Beard – The Guardian, 8 August 2021

How Article Club works

1. We meet every six weeks or so in the National Theatre building in Central London by the river. We go for the round seats in the Lyttelton Theatre bar on the first floor.

2. We vote in advance and pick two articles from a short list to read before we meet. Usually one relates to politics/current affairs and the other to history, culture or science.

3. We talk about each one for around half an hour. The beauty of Article Club is that we can think more deeply about the broader themes of a topic, and how well the article gets to grips with them.

4. We each give a score out of 10 for the articles that have been discussed.

5. We set the date for the next Article Club and sometimes adjourn to the pub.

Our next three Article Clubs will be:

• Thursday 26 June at 7:30pm
• Thursday 7 August at 7:30pm
• Thursday 18 September at 7:30pm

And to meet more of the Sunday Assembly London community while learning about a new or familiar topic, you’re always welcome at our Sunday Assemblies too!

Our Sunday Assembly London band had great fun playing pop songs at Enrich Festival on Sunday 27th April, alongside a brilliant and inclusive line-up of talented performers.

How the festival describes itself:

‘Enrich Festival is an inclusive Arts festival showcasing the immense talent of disabled and neurodivergent artists and performers in the UK. It is produced by Herts Inclusive Theatre, an award winning charity that aims to break down barriers about disability through the Performing Arts.

Enrich Festival is delighted to return to Watford Palace Theatre on 26th & 27th April 2025. Join us as we showcase the immense talent of neurodiverse and disabled people in the Arts through drama, dance, film, art, comedy, music and poetry; complemented by inclusive and fully accessible arts-based workshops for all ages and abilities, there’s something for everyone across this weekend extravaganza!’

Our live band (which includes exceptionally talented neurodivergent musicians) made it their mission to get the whole theatre singing along to well-known pop songs. In true Sunday Assembly style, the lyrics were on a big screen so everyone could sing along if they wanted to.

A typical Sunday Assembly has four songs; the Enrich audience got ten songs! They included:

• A Little Respect – Erasure
• Let It Go from Frozen
• Flowers – Miley Cyrus
• What Makes You Beautiful – One Direction
• It’s My Life – Bon Jovi
• Grace Kelly – Mika
• This Is Me from The Greatest Showman
• Mamma Mia – ABBA

Well done to our band, thanks to everyone who came along and congratulations to Sunday Assembly London’s Tanya Byrne for making such an amazing festival happen!

Find out more at enrichfestival.org