Main Events

The topic of alien life is no longer just in the realms of Science Fiction – it is now mainstream science with courses in Astrobiology being run by most Universities. Even NASA has a Centre for Astrobiology, and one of the tasks of the new James Webb Space Telescope is to look for signs of alien life.

In this talk, Dr. Peter Altman will speak about our place in the Universe, putting its size into context and looking at the historical origins of the concept of UFOs as well as current evidence and validity. He will help us to learn how to look out for the signs, and to think for ourselves, ‘what are the chances?!’

Dr. Peter Altman is a biochemist, medical researcher and publisher as well as a magician, having been a Member of the Magic Circle since 1984. He is also the author of Mysteries of the Universe and Astounding Facts about the Universe. A third book, Amazing Discoveries in Science, is in preparation.

We will also be graced with some poetry from Flora Ogilvy.

Prioritising happiness and kindness influences how we approach everything – including our personal lives, families, communities, schools and workplaces. It also shapes our views on public policy and helps us to consider the wellbeing of future generations too.

Sarah Vero, Head of Communications at Action for Happiness has a specialism in the intersection of joy, creativity, politics, mental health and wellbeing. She joins us today to talk about how we can help each other learn evidence-based skills for happier living, feel a sense of belonging and commit to personal action to create more happiness, for ourselves and others.

We are also thrilled to have poetry from Soni Quintero, poet and founder of Newham Poetry Group, Queer Newham, and Borderless; initiatives that facilitate access to creative writing for people new to the English language, and create safe and supportive spaces for POC LGBTQ+ refugees and forced migrants.

Nelson Mandela said that “no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails”, but few of us ever get to see for ourselves what life is like inside a UK prison.

Guest speaker: Rob Foreman

Sunday Assembly London’s own Rob Foreman has spent 10 years as an independent monitor observing conditions in London’s prisons. Monitors are volunteers who are granted access to prisons and other places of detention, in order to judge whether the people held there are being treated fairly and humanely, as well as providing an independent voice to those who are marginalised or unable to speak up for themselves.

Rob provided insights into how the reality of prisons matches the public perception, and the difference that volunteering has made to his own life.

Guest poet: Chris Syrus

Chris shared some of his poems from his new book of Poetry, LoveLife6968 Memoirs from The Pen, written whilst he was incarcerated. After turning his life around post release, Chris is now a Personal Development Speaker & Coach, using the creative arts to help young people at risk of offending.

Watch the recording

Ever heard of the Pink Plum tomato? The Mayan Jaguar lettuce, Lablab Bean or maybe the French Marigold?

To enlighten us on such things we are delighted to welcome Helene Schultz who is part of the collective behind the London Freedom Seed Bank, a grassroots urban seed network, stewarding over 170 London-grown vegetable, herb and flower varieties and helping to keep them alive and flourishing for future generations. She is also doing a PhD exploring the urban seed commons. She is interested in the ways seed savers, particularly of migrant heritage, subvert a long colonial and xenophobic regime which has dominated (and profited from) the international movement of plant material.

Helene is the editor of The Preserve Journal and part of the Garden of Earthly Delights, a guerrilla gardening collective. She is interested in mutual aid, particularly from feminist, anticolonial, antiracist and indigenous perspectives, and how working with seeds can help us build more just and care-full futures.

IG: https://www.instagram.com/helene__schulze/

LFSB IG: https://www.instagram.com/freedomseedbank/

Coping with the subjects of death and grief remain some of life’s greatest challenges. For those who are not part of a religious framework or community – and do not wish to be – what can be offered as a substitute for the emotional comfort that religious faith offers those in facing their own death or the death of their loved ones? How can we find ways to adapt ritual technology to support ourselves and our communities on the long and challenging path of loss and bereavement?

Guest speaker: Rachel Rose Reid

Rachel is a spoken word artist, writer & storyteller grappling directly with these questions. Raised on a hotchpotch of immigrant heritage, English folk and concrete jungle, Rachel plays with storytelling through the creation and adaptation of folk rituals and practices for meeting real and pressing needs in contemporary life.

Rachel aims to show that the art of reclaiming, renewing, and restoring ritual practice in everyday life is for everyone, and is most often made by people making do with what they have available to them, which can be enough.

Watch the recording

From Shame to Pride, Fear to Joy – We are all our own master Alchemists.

Chris Fitchew is part jester, part comedian, full joy alchemist and space holder who has travelled the world to hone his crafts, including working with plant medicines in Peru, vortex energy healing and working with many great teachers and Wisdom Sharers. He believes that one of the greatest access points in finding our purpose and self-healing is through laughter, joy, and play; for ourselves and our communities.

Chris brings his life story to this Sunday Assembly London Pride special, as he shares how he managed to pivot and transmute a childhood of shame to a life of pride, and fears a plenty into Joy in abundance.

Tom Ana will be the guest poet for this Assembly. They are a nonbinary writer and facilitator from the North of England, and run the Queer Poetry Circle, a space that aims to create a new oral tradition through exploring poetry; Queer Spiritual Explorers, a group for interfaith exploration for LGBTQ+ people, and are a co-facilitator at the Queer Death Café.

Watch the recording

Sometimes life is a coin toss. Sometimes it’s a foregone conclusion. The problem is telling the difference, but this is a skill you can improve. Whether you want to know how your next date will go or who will win the US election, you can learn when to be confident and when to be uncertain. Nathan Young, a forecaster at the Swift Centre, has a few tips for adding predictions into your toolkit. You’ll enjoy it. Probably.

Nathan predicts events in geopolitics, AI and pandemics, and builds forecasting tools online. He also founded the Coronavirus Tech Handbook. Beyond that, he likes singing and hosting community dinners. If you have an idea for a forecasting question, he’d love to hear it at @nathanpmyoung on twitter.

We’re also very much looking forward to Hannah Deasy in our poetry slot! Hannah offers hard -hitting, vulnerable and often hilarious spoken word. Unpredictable, raw, warm and not afraid to dish the dirt on the state of her mental health, she holds crowds gripped with her personal true stories, skilfully intertwined with supremely well observed jokes.

Watch the recording

Dance occupies a funny place in the English psyche; can you think of an activity we engage with so enthusiastically and regularly, but also so badly. Why was it banned by Oliver Cromwell and the priest in Footloose? Why was the government so threatened by “music wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats”? When society wants us to be cerebral observers of culture, dance allows us to be visceral participants.

We’re delighted to have our very own Alan Gregan deliver a talk on how we in England live, how we dance and how we can use dance to explore and practise different ways of living. Alan is a dancer, a teacher and a Sunday Assembly community member. He has been learning styles under the swing umbrella for 12 years and teaching since 2015.

We will also have Emma Fisher deliver a movement workshop that explores what it might be like to tune into the language of our bodies, developing internal connectivity to allow for greater outer expressivity, and beginning to re-choreograph narratives about self, other and community. Emma is a professional dancer and registered Dance Movement Psychotherapist. Her performance career has taken her across 5 continents, collaborating with artists and choreographers.

Your host for the assembly is Anj Cairns.

Watch the recording