Past events

In 1999, in a rural area of Australia, a woman noticed that many of the local retired miners and Vietnam veterans, really missed working with others. A workshop was put together where people could make and mend items often for themselves but also for the community. Others followed that lead. How did it start here? And why is it spreading?

Today we are joined by Founder and Life President of UKMSA, Mike Jenn, who has worked in practical social innovations for 50 years across community education (under-fives, truanting teenagers, families), and relieving deprivation ( crisis, homelessness, unemployment) and then he ‘retired’ to start something new.

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”

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. Today, co-founder Tim Shaw will be with us to talk about their 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.

We also welcome 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.

Happy 12th birthday Sunday Assembly! And Happy New Yeeaaarr!

Along with the requisite fireworks, bubbles and the dash for snogs at midnight, the idea of New Year also brings forth the pressure of ‘New Year’s Resolutions’.

Whether it’s to lose that last ten pounds, quit smoking or finally take up the Cha Cha, more and more people are realising that the conventional idea of ‘New Year’s Resolutions’, are all based on external measures, and can actually be harmful to our wellbeing. Even when they are about health and fitness, the underlying purpose tends to be for something outside of ourselves, putting us under pressure to be ‘better’.

Following a 16 year career in social work, Tamu Thomas is now a leading somatic specialist, leadership coach, author and workshop facilitator with a specialism in combating ‘toxic productivity’. In this talk she invites us all to consider resolutions that make us feel vibrant and alive rather than as a covert means to fix ourselves. Living more sumptuously is about feeling full, satiated, satisfied, and Tamu believes that when we each do this individual work, we collectively benefit from a more positive, productive, and purposeful culture.

In August 2024, environmentalist and barrister, Paul Powlesland made history, by becoming the first member of a UK jury to swear an oath on a river – his beloved River Roding, where he both lives and spends time restoring. A co-founder of the River Roding Trust, Paul has also worked with locals to plant hundreds of trees, remove over a thousand bags of rubbish and hoist precisely 75 shopping trolleys from the Roding’s clay-thick riverbed.

We are thrilled to welcome Paul to Sunday Assembly today to share his journey as well some of his wisdom on the things that we can all do to be better stewards to the natural world. Paul is also co-founder of Lawyers for Nature, an advocacy group calling for the UK to grant rivers a legal right of protection.

We are also excited to have some spoken word from Esme Fay Finch, a poet, children’s author and forest school teacher, who’s project ‘Ways of the Wild’, inspires and educates children about environmental matters through storytelling, art workshops and dance.

There will also be four fantastic songs performed by our very own Sunday Assembly Band, so bring your best singing voices and dancing shoes! Doors open at 10.30am for an 11am start – please bring your re-usable cups to enjoy tea, coffee, and chats with members of our community.

Sunday Assembly 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. Please stay after for tea, biscuits, and engaging conversations with members of our community. Our assemblies are free to attend, but we kindly request that you support us so we can continue to keep it open to those who cannot afford to contribute.

In our post-capitalist society it is easy to wonder why so many of us are still struggling with a feeling of meaninglessness.

More than 2000 years ago Aristotle, Epicurus and the Stoics were pondering the same things and providing potential solutions to this dilemma.

John Graves is a teacher of Psychotherapeutic Studies, Life Coach, and life-long philosophy student sparked by the early teachings of his Greek mother.

Today he will introduce us to some of the wisdom from our Ancient Agony Uncles – showing us how relevant these ideas still are, hopefully saving us having to pay for self-help books!

We’re also thrilled to have spoken word poetry by Anna Herber – a poet, songwriter & speaker – who helped so many people find an inner sense of purpose.

Sunday Assembly is your regular and reliable stop for a welcoming, accessible and inspiring community. You can hear talks, poetry, share your stories and make new friends.

Please stay after for tea, biscuits a chat with members of our community. We are proud to be one of the ‘things to do in London’ on a Sunday morning!

Sniff sniff, dribble dribble, cough cough. As we creep ever more into the cold and darkness of winter, we may all be feeling more under the weather than usual, with an increase in ill health rising significantly over the winter months, when the body is less effective in fighting off infections.

Antibiotics have been a central part of our society’s approach to managing infectious diseases for nearly a century. But how were they discovered, and when and by whom? And does it really involve a 3,500 year old mouldy sandwich from Ancient Egypt?

Dr. Peter Altman is a biochemist, medical researcher and publisher and a veteran magician, having been a member of the Magic Circle since 1984. Today he will share some of his latest research from his third book, currently in production, Amazing Discoveries in Science.

We are also thrilled to have some poetry from former biochemist herself, Kay Scorah, who brings 70 years worth of experiment and creativity to her writing.

Sunday Assembly 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. Please stay after for tea, biscuits, and engaging conversations with members of our community.

The world of maths is one of the most abstract realms of human understanding. Whilst some of us find it logical, satisfying and beautiful, many of us struggle with the challenges of its concepts, find numbers difficult to comprehend, or may have been discouraged by traditional methods of teaching.

Today we are joined by artist, musician and numberphobe-turned-numberphile Brook Tate, who – as someone who severely struggled himself with mainstream methods of education – took it upon himself to design a new a unique method to help people of all ages learn, understand and quite possibly, fall in love with maths.

Multicolour Maths is a new method designed to help children and adults learn the foundations of mathematics using only colours and shapes, opening up the world of mathematics into endlessly beautiful patterns and helping students of all ages understand and appreciate the language of the universe.

Since first inventing the method in India in January 2024, Brook has presented it to the Head of Maths Education at Bristol University, the British Society of Research into Learning Mathematics, The British Library’s Inventors Club and the Alan Turing Institute. The BBC is also currently developing a short feature on the project.

Brook will also perform a song from his recent musical theatre piece.