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 will be 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. Voting is open here until 15th June.
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 two Article Clubs will be:
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!
Join us after the Assembly (Craftivism on 1st June) for lunch!
If the weather is good we’ll be outside, so bring blankets and food to share. Otherwise, we’ll head for a local restaurant, café or pub that serves food. (We’ll tell you which during the Assembly.)
Keep an eye on the weather and event listing in case we need to change venue. And if you have any portable games, bring them too. Newcomers are very welcome.
We all have issues we’re passionate about. But what if shouting in protest isn’t your style? Could the answer be not to get cross, but to get cross-stitching?
The global Craftivist Collective has helped change laws, policies, hearts and minds around the world as well as expand the view of what activism can be. Today we are thrilled to be joined by its founder Sarah P Corbett: an award-winning activist whose ‘Gentle Protest’ methodology of strategic, compassionate and visually intriguing activism has helped craft a more beautiful, kinder and fairer society.
Learn about the unique appeal of craftivism: for skilled crafters, burnt-out activists, introverts, highly sensitive people or those struggling with anxiety. Hear how it replaces aggressive enemies with critical friends. And discover how embroidered hankies really can change how major companies operate.
In the spirit of using our voices together, there will also be four pop songs performed by our Sunday Assembly London band.
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.
[Photo credit: Craftivist Collective]
→ Our next assembly:Dolphins: Their World and Ours, 15th June
Following World Ocean Day on 8th June, marine biologist Pavan Kaur Virdee from Incredible Oceans will be our guide to dolphins and the enchantment under the sea.
→→ And the one after that:The Outside Project, 6th July
The Outside Project was founded as the UK’s first shelter, centre and domestic abuse refuge for the LGBTIQ+ community. Hear from co-founder and director Carla Ecola about how their team have been working since 2017 to support LGBTIQ+ people in London without a home or a place to feel safe – driven by their own personal experiences.
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 will be our 72nd 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.
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.
Look out for details of our next Article Club. 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!
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 will be 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.
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 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!
Could a look into history give the modern buzzword ‘synergy’ real meaning, while bringing us closer to our Sunday Assembly goals to Live Better, Help Often and Wonder More? Today we tackled this question, while also reflecting on Mental Health Awareness Week and giving a nod to yesterday’s Eurovision Song Contest.
How did we cram all of that into 90 minutes? Read on to find out…
Our guest speaker: John Graves
Throughout history, societies and economies have been governed by a succession of elites who have amassed enormous wealth while the bulk of their fellow citizens live in relative poverty.
They are often presented as exceptional, entrepreneurial, gifted individuals, when in fact they’re driven by insecurity and attempts to overcome their sense of inferiority.
Some pre-industrial societies managed to avoid this schismatic structure, finding a way to harness these energies for social benefit. What can we learn today from these synergistic societies?
We were delighted to welcome back John Graves: psychotherapeutic studies teacher, life coach and lifelong philosophy student. John explored the ingrained disparity between society’s wealthiest and poorest, explaining how our own society could achieve greater synergy: individuals’ assets and actions supporting the common good.
Our guest poet: Rowan Kiffin-Murray
We also heard from East London poet Rowan. Rowan’s poetry expressed his ideas about loneliness and life’s journeys, including the virtues of a metaphorical unicycle.
Today’s songs
Our Sunday Assembly London Band performed four songs: three on the theme of togetherness, one in reference to Eurovision:
Come Together – The Beatles
Together in Electric Dreams – Phil Oakey and Giorgio Moroder
Happy Together – The Turtles
Waterloo – ABBA
Notices
Today’s updates included:
Our book swap table: a flexibly defined feature of all our assemblies where books can be donated and/or taken (but ideally taken as we have a lot at the moment)
A thank you from Ann to Aaron and David, the volunteers who joined her to help steward the Mile End junior parkrun before today’s assembly
Marking the last day of Mental Health Awareness Week and its official theme of Community, our new Community Engagement Lead Tanya invited us to write about our experiences of Sunday Assembly London’s community after the assembly. Thank you to everyone for their contributions, which we’re looking forward to sharing
As always, we followed the assembly with tea, biscuits and chat at the Backyard Comedy Club, lunch locally, and drinks & games at The Three Colts pub.
As a bonus, we also had a guided walk. At 2pm, Sunday Assembly London volunteer and local resident Diane hosted a tour of the spaces that put the green into Bethnal Green, sharing her wealth of local knowledge.
Thanks to our host Alan, co-host Hanna, all our wonderful volunteers and everyone who filled the room with singing, good energy and appreciation – especially our first-timers!
Sarah Corbett will be sharing the story of co-founding the Craftivist Collective: a strategic and compassionate take on activism that makes a real impact.
→→ And the one after that:Deep Dive: Wonders of the Ocean Depths, 15th June
Following World Ocean Day on 8th June, marine biologist Pavan Kaur Virdee from Incredible Oceans will be our guide to the enchantment under the sea.
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!
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!
Sunday Assembly’s annual global conference! Meet people from all over the world in Glasgow on 25th – 28th September.
From our hosts, Sunday Assembly Glasgow:
‘Every year members of different Sunday Assemblies across the UK, Europe and America come together in celebration, through a programme of talks, workshops and activities, that help us live by our motto to Live Better, Help Often and Wonder More. This year, we at Sunday Assembly Glasgow are excited to host the gathering and welcome people to our incredible city.
The conference is open to any Sunday Assembly members or supporters, and anyone interested in celebrating life with us. Children are welcome but must have their own ticket and anyone under the age of 18 must be accompanied by a responsible adult. We can’t wait to see you all!
Expect wonder-provoking talks, interactive workshops, and carefully curated activities that will help you build connections, live better and make the most of your time in Scotland. There’ll be something for everyone, whether you’re an organiser looking to develop your assembly, an assembly member looking to feel more connected to our network, or if you simply want to come along and celebrate life with like-minded people. And of course, there’ll be plenty of fun, food, singing and live music from a mega band of Sunday Assembly musicians from around the world.
We’re delighted to be able to keep ticket prices similar to previous years, and a discounted Early Bird ticket will be available until 31st March 2025, at £110. We’ll also have day tickets, subsidised tickets and children’s tickets available.’
We love Sunday mornings, but there’s nothing quite like a good night out. Having a drink and a dance. Staying out late. Catching up with old friends and making new ones. But what if going out-out comes with obstacles?
For someone with a learning disability, a night out can be life-changing. Fortunately there’s a special organisation that’s been making that happen for 20 years – and it began in a place that Sunday Assembly London know well.
Our guest speaker: Twinks Burnett, Bubble Club
On 4th May we were joined by Twinks Burnett, Marketing and Communications Manager for Bubble Club: an award-winning East London non-profit that co-creates high-quality, inclusive club nights for adults with learning disabilities as well as running development programmes for learning-disabled artists and DJs in the community.
Founded in 2005 – at the Backyard Comedy Club where Sunday Assembly London now resides – Bubble Club offers rare opportunities for fully accessible and carefully curated club nights for people who have felt excluded from mainstream venues, from live music and DJs to open mic nights and sensory spaces.
Twinks took us through the history of this groundbreaking organisation as well as its current challenges in the face of club & pub closures and council funding cuts.
Our guest poet: Rufaro, Bubble Club
Bubble Club community member Rufaro, aka DJ Awesome, read heartfelt poems he’d written about relationships, friendship and loneliness.
Sunday Assembly London is your regular and reliable stop for a welcoming, accessible and inspiring Sunday community, where you can hear talks, poetry, share your stories 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.
About the date…
If you marked today as Star Wars Day (“May the Fourth be with you”), then unlike Darth Vader we don’t find a lack of faith disturbing. All faiths and no faiths are welcome at Sunday Assembly London for our secular celebration of life. So come and say hello: you won’t be Solo!
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!
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