Main Events

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

• A reminder about the Sunday Assembly Global Gathering in Glasgow in September
• 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!

→ Our next assembly: Craftivism: The Art of Gentle Protest, 1 June

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.

← Our previous assembly: Bubble Club: Inclusive Nightlife Under Threat, 4 May

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.

Watch videos of Rufaro sharing his poetry with us

Today’s songs

To the accompaniment of a bubble machine, we sang along as our Sunday Assembly London band performed four pop songs connected to today’s theme:

• Murder on the Dancefloor – Sophie Ellis-Bextor
• Shut Up and Dance – Kill the Moon
• Wake Me Up – Avicii
• I Want it That Way – Backstreet Boys 

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
• A call for volunteers for the Mile End Parkrun at 9am on 18th May. Contact Ann via our Facebook page for more details
• Diane’s plans to lead a guided walk, Putting the Green into Bethnal Green, meeting at The Three Colts pub at 2pm on 18th May
• A reminder about the Sunday Assembly Global Gathering in Glasgow in September

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, 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 next assembly: Towards a Synergistic Society, 18th May

← Our previous assembly: Living Well in a Climate Crisis, 20th April

An educational assembly, connecting us to the most pressing issue of today’s world and our emotions around it. Read on to find out more…

Our guest speaker: Gale Burns

The UN target of limiting global warming to 1.5°C looks likely to be broken soon. Despite great advances in renewables, fossil fuel use continues to increase, and the impact of climate change is being increasingly witnessed worldwide.

In a world that seems committed to business as usual, how do we continue to live well, overcome eco-anxiety and be optimistic for the future? How do we step outside any denial or numbness and better understand what meaningful action for us individually and as a society in the current period looks like?

With Earth Day coming up on 22 April, we were joined by Gale Burns: Greenpeace speaker and advisor, qualified psychotherapeutic counsellor and a founding member of the Climate Minds Coalition. He works with many organisations setting up listening structures so that new solutions can be found to challenging issues.

Gale condensed an overwhelming topic into a concise presentation: explaining the impact of climate change, the potential consequences of inaction, and what we can each do to live better and help the planet.

Stressing the importance of acting and learning in unison, Gale encouraged us to do a listening exercise. In pairs, we took turns to talk about the climate crisis, our personal perspective and the emotions we associate with it.

Our guest poet: Sue Johns

While we were sorry not to hear from Caroline Davies as advertised, we were grateful to Sue Johns for stepping in at short notice.

Sue’s poems reflected on aspects of the natural world and its disharmony with the manmade world, from a bag stuck in a sycamore tree to animals’ reclamation of the world during lockdown in 2020.

Our songs

Our Sunday Assembly band had us singing along to four songs with links to environmental threats: 

• Weather With You – Crowded House
• Ring Of Fire – Johnny Cash
• Big Yellow Taxi – Joni Mitchell
• Set Fire To The Rain – Adele

This Much I Know: Leon Baruah

This Much I Know is an opportunity for our Sunday Assembly London community members to shine a light on a specialism, talent or passion they have.

Leon gave us an insight into his work with Viridian Logic in ecohydrology: natural flood management to benefit ecosystems.

Notices

Topics of our notices included:

• Our Book Swap table (where swapping is not compulsory)
• A thank you to everyone who supported our first ever comedy fundraiser on 10th April. We raised over £,1000 for Sunday Assembly London! We’re already talking about the next comedy night
• Sunday Assembly’s annual conference, which this year is in Glasgow from 25th-28th September. Details about Sunday Assembly Glasgow Gathering here
• An invitation from Ann to help steward the Mile End Parkrun on Sunday 18 May – details here
• The Enrich Festival in Watford on the weekend of 26th-27th April. Enrich Festival is an inclusive arts festival showcasing the immense talent of disabled and neurodivergent artists and performers. The Sunday Assembly London band are performing on the Sunday

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.

Thanks to our host Matt, co-host Hanna, all our wonderful volunteers and everyone who filled the room with singing, laughter and appreciation – especially our first-timers!

→ Our next assembly: Bubble Club: Inclusive Nightlife Under Threat, 4th May
← Our previous assembly: The Mindful Photo Lab, 6th April

The smartphone and social media age has made taking photos a part of our lives like never before. But is there a more fulfilling way to approach photography?

On Sunday 6 April, we heard from guest speaker Pierre Bureau, Founder of Mindful Photo Lab and the East London Photography Festival: an exciting initiative that blends mindfulness, creativity, and community engagement through photography.

Pierre told us how he was inspired to start a community that used photography to improve mental health, and the festival’s mission to celebrate East London’s rich cultural diversity and its focus on fostering wellbeing and connection through visual storytelling.

Our songs

Our Sunday Assembly band had us singing along to four photo-themed pop songs: 

• Picture of You – Boyzone
• Photograph – Ed Sheeran
• Wishing (If I had a Photograph of You) – A Flock of Seagulls
• Paparazzi – Lady Gaga

Thanks to our host Alan, co-host Andrew, all our wonderful volunteers and everyone who filled the room with singing, laughter and appreciation – especially our first-timers!

→ Our next assembly: Earth Day Special, Living Well in a Climate Crisis, 20 April
← Our previous assembly: Use Your Voice: How to Unlock Your Courage and Amplify Your Message, 16 March

Sunday Assembly’s International Women’s Day 2025 Special was an inspirational, emotional hour. Read on to find out how…

Our guest speaker: Anna Herber

Previously a guest poet at Sunday Assembly, we were delighted to welcome back writer, poet and entrepreneur Anna Herber as our speaker.

[Photo credit: Anna Herber, LinkedIn]

Anna helps people move through resistance and fear so they can share powerful messages that question the status quo and grow their impact.

For this special IWD talk, Anna celebrated women who have used their voices to create change, as well as some of the most common ways that women are silenced, and how to overcome them.

Drawing from her own experience, she showed us how to liberate our outspoken inner activist, truth speaker and wisdom keeper – overcoming procrastination and perfectionism, unlocking our courage and amplifying our authentic voice.

Watch a clip from Anna’s previous Sunday Assembly visit on Instagram

Our guest poet: Kay Scorah

With Amy Anam Cara sadly unable to join us due to illness, community member Kay Scorah kindly stepped in.

We loved her Gender Stereowiped Nursery Rhymes, which included Jill giving Jack essential first aid and Mary profiting off organic wool sweaters!

Our songs

Our Sunday Assembly band had us singing along to four empowering songs from female artists: 

• Hold On – Wilson Phillips
• Unwritten – Natasha Bedingfield
• You Gotta Be – Des’Ree
• Brave – Sara Bareilles

Notices

Topics of our notices included:

• Our Book Swap table (where swapping is not compulsory)
• Our first ever comedy fundraiser, bringing four fantastic comedians to you on 10th April – details here
• Our next Sunday Assembly Article Club on Thursday 3 April – details here
• Sunday Assembly’s annual conference, which this year is in Glasgow from 25th-28th September. Details about Sunday Assembly Glasgow Gathering here
• An invitation from Ann to help steward the Mile End Parkrun on Sunday 18 May – details here
• An invitation from Tanya to come to the Enrich Festival in Watford on the weekend of 26th-27th April. Enrich Festival is an inclusive arts festival showcasing the immense talent of disabled and neurodivergent artists and performers. The Sunday Assembly London band are performing on the Sunday.

A bonus guest poet

Inspired by Anna’s talk, community member Steph read out a poem by her friend, whose experiences in Afghanistan had moved him to urge his fellow men to support women.

As always, we followed the assembly with tea, biscuits and chat at the Backyard Comedy Club, then lunch, drinks & games at The Three Colts pub.

Thanks to our host Emily, co-host Matt, all our wonderful volunteers and everyone who filled the room with singing, laughter and appreciation – especially our first-timers!

Thanks also to everyone who wore purple in support of International Women’s day.

International Women’s Day 2024 at Sunday Assembly

As part of last year’s Sunday Assembly IWD Special, we wrote personal pledges to Inspire Inclusion, that year’s theme. Here’s a selection of our pledges. Click or tap to enlarge:

→ Our next assembly: The Mindful Photo Lab, 6 April
← Our previous assembly: Everyday Jews, 2 March

To find out what we did at this Sunday Assembly, read on!

Our guest speaker: Keith Kahn-Harris

Following his hilarious 2022 Sunday Assembly talk on the multilingual warning messages inside Kinder Surprise Eggs(!), we welcomed back speaker and author Keith Kahn-Harris to discuss his new book, Everyday Jews: Why the Jewish People Are Not Who You Think They Are.

The book was inspired by Keith’s growing sense, as a Jew, that the Jewish people are now so public, so significant, so loved and so hated that the everyday stuff of Jewish life risks becoming ‘hollowed out’. In response, he aims to show that Jews can also be boring, mediocre and mundane, and that the ‘secular’ aspects of Jewish religious practice are often ignored but are the beating heart of Jewish religious life.

We learned how synagogues are as much about supper quizzes and social life as they are about communing with the divine, and the value in remembering that Jewish life can have its mundane and mediocre moments too.

Our guest performance: comedy from Rabbi Mendy Korer

We also welcomed jogger, chess player and stand-up comedian Rabbi Mendy Korer to this Assembly!

Founder of Chabad Islington, the only Jewish community centre in Islington, he loves to find ways to connect with people from diverse backgrounds, particularly through the human, spiritual and comedic relatability of Chassidic ultra-orthodox Jews.

Our songs

Our Sunday Assembly band performed three songs written and/or sung by Jewish artists:

• The Life of Riley – The Lightning Seeds
• Eternal Flame – The Bangles
• Valerie – as sung by Amy Winehouse

This Much I Know

Today we reintroduced This Much I Know: a segment where we hear from a member of the Sunday Assembly community on a topic close to their heart.

This time, David Goldstein explained why he started coming to Sunday Assembly 10 years after hearing about us… and shared some big news about a grant application he’s been involved with. Find out more here

Notices

Topics of our notices included:

• Our Book Swap table (where swapping is not compulsory)
• Our first ever comedy fundraiser, bringing four fantastic comedians to you on 10th April – details here
• Sunday Assembly’s annual conference, which this year is in Glasgow from 25th-28th September. Details about Sunday Assembly Glasgow Gathering here

As always, we followed the assembly with tea, biscuits and chat (and a sip of Palwin Jewish wine from Keith) at the Backyard Comedy Club, Lunch Club (at Hulya’s Cafe) and drinks & games at The Three Colts pub.

Thanks to our host Hanna, co-host Shane, all our wonderful volunteers and everyone who filled the room with singing, laughter and appreciation – especially our first-timers!

→ Our next assembly: Use Your Voice: How to Unlock Your Courage and Amplify Your Message, 16 March
← Our previous assembly: Tell Me What You Want, What You Really, Really Want!, 16 February

If you really, really want to know what we did at this Sunday Assembly, read on!

Our guest speaker: Adam Taffler

Desires often get a bad press. From religion to popular culture, they’re painted as dangerous and uncontrollable forces to be suppressed or ignored.

Yet our desires are really messengers of what matters most. A healthy relationship with our needs and wants is vital – it’s the foundation of personal autonomy, authentic relationships, and our own sacred unfolding.

For our Valentine’s Special, we were thrilled to welcome Adam Taffler, a facilitator and authentic communication coach, to help us all understand how to better articulate what we need and want in our relationships. Adam’s mission is making human connection a higher priority in culture. Known for founding the Togetherness movement and creating Shhh Dating (a silent speed dating experience), he designs spaces where genuine connection flourishes.

Adam Taffler’s website

Our guest poet: Michael McKimm

We were also excited to have some spoken word from Michael McKimm, an East London-based poet, originally from Ireland. His most recent book Because We Could Not Dance At The Wedding is about love in a long-term gay relationship and finding joy in an uncertain world.

Michael McKimm’s website

Our four songs

Courtesy of the Sunday Assembly band, we sang four songs with the theme of wanting:

– You’re The One That I Want – John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John
– Don’t You Want Me – Human League
– We Can Work It Out – The Beatles
– Wannabe – Spice Girls (cunningly disguised as Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana)

Notices

Topics of our notices included:

– Our Book Swap table (where swapping is not compulsory)
– An invitation to volunteer at the Mile End parkrun on 16 March
– Our sister assembly in Reading, The Sunday Alternative
– Our next Article Club on 20th February – details here
– Our first ever comedy fundraiser, bringing four fantastic comedians to you on 10th April – details here

As always, we followed the assembly with tea, biscuits and chat at the Backyard Comedy Club, Lunch Club (at Nando’s) and drinks & games at The Three Colts.

Thanks to our host Stuart, co-host Alan, all our wonderful volunteers and everyone who filled the room with singing, laughter and appreciation – especially our first-timers!

→ Our next assembly: Everyday Jews, 2 March
← Our previous assembly: Men’s Sheds: Craft, Connection and Community, 2 February

In 1999, in a rural area of Australia, a woman noticed that many of the retired, local miners and veterans were suffering from a sense of isolation and purposelessness; missing working with their fellow men. Coinciding with a developing awareness of a crisis within men’s mental health, a pilot workshop was put together, inviting men to come and restore furniture and fix appliances, allowing them to connect with the people around them, and learn new skills.

‘Men’s Sheds’, as they came to be known, are now a global phenomenon, with nearly 3,000 sheds operating in 12 countries, including Ireland, UK, New Zealand, Canada, US, Kenya, and South Africa.

In 2014, Professor Barry Golding coined the term “”shedagogy”” to describe “a distinctive, new way of acknowledging, describing and addressing the way some men prefer to learn informally in shed-like spaces mainly with other men”

We are joined by Founder and Life President of the UK’s branch of MSA, Mike Jenn, who has worked in practical social innovations for 50 years across community education and relieving deprivation. He shared with us how the charities’ “shedagogy” continues to grow and change lives; fostering community, creativity and tackling life-shortening isolation for many.

We were also treated to some ‘Shedding your inhibitions!’ games by our resident Games Master, Matt!

Men’s Sheds UK

Our guest speaker: Tim Shaw

January is Mental Wellness Month, a time to promote awareness and understanding of our challenges around mental health, as the numbers of people needing support continues to rise in the UK. For any of us who have spent time in hospitals know, they are often the least uplifting of places. Harshly lit, clinical, noisy and sparsely decorated, many hospital spaces seem at odds with a sense of care or healing, beneficial to both patients and staff.

It was a recognition of this grim state of affairs that led to the foundation of Hospital Rooms, the UK arts and mental health charity, which aims to bring creativity, colour, and kindness to mental health hospitals and transform them into places of hope, dignity, and recovery for all.

Co-founder Tim Shaw was with us to talk about the charity’s collaborations with artists, service users, and the NHS, to craft innovative artwork and creative programmes while dispelling stigmas and advocating for culture and creativity in mental health as a universal human right. Hospital Rooms has worked with artists such as Richard Wentworth, Anish Kapoor and Sonia Boyce and were awarded Quality Improvement Project of the Year 2018 by NAPICU.

Hospital Rooms

Our guest poet: Rachel Lewis

We also welcomed Rachel Lewis, a poet and creative facilitator interested in hidden pain, everyday joy and love beyond romance. Her first pamphlet on eating disorder recovery, Three Degrees of Separation, was published by Wordsmith HQ.

Rachel Lewis’s website