Saying Yes to Life
Are you ready for this?
It may be the most positive Sunday Assembly that ever there could be.
We are being joined by YesTribe founder, Dave Cornthwaite for a Sunday Assembly to get you in the mood for summer!
Since quitting a job as a terrible graphic designer (his words, not ours!) in 2005, Dave has developed a successful career based around his passions. He’s an expert in adventure, non-motorised travel, audacity and creating work that you love.
Dave is a record-breaking adventurer twelve journeys into his groundbreaking Expedition1000 project: 25 journeys of 1000 miles or more, each using a different form of non-motorised transport.
Amongst his adventures are record breaking SUP journeys along the Mississippi and around Martinique, longboarding across Australia, swimming 1001 miles and co-founding the groundbreaking growth mindset projects, Exploring Mindset and Winter Quest. On top of that he’s written three books: the bestselling Life in the Slow Lane, a hapless search for love in Date, and BoardFree, the story of how he left his job to skateboard further than anyone ever had.
In between adventures Dave is committed to enabling others to reach their own potential through social journeys, workshops, group expeditions and mindset-shaping projects. In 2015 his motto, SayYesMore, transformed into a different beast when he accidentally founded a social enterprise the same name and a community of doers called The YesTribe, which offers a gentle solution to the mental health pressures of today’s society.
In between adventures he also leads The YesTribe, a community of doers dedicated to redesigning life for the better. He blogs and speaks about adventure, living life on our own terms and maximising efficiency of choice in order to to magnify the positive impact of our work and lifestyle. If his enthusiasm for simple living, the power of adventure for good and the glorious pursuit of enjoying Mondays isn’t enough to get you ready for a new challenge, as well as some power ballad singing and being with 400 other brilliant humans, we don’t know what will!
BSL interpretation will be provided.
We can’t wait to see you there and have fun celebrating life with you all!
Sunday Assembly London is free to attend and runs entirely on donations. Please support us if you can to keep it free for those who can’t.
Feeling Like A Fraud: How To Overcome Imposter Syndrome
So many of us have felt it.
‘There must have been a mistake’.
‘They’ll find out that I’m not the right person soon’.
‘Everyone else is much more qualified than me’.
‘Someone will realise I’m a fraud soon enough’.
Imposter Syndrome and feeling like a fraud are such common things, whether in education, at work or in our friendships and communities.
We are being joined by Award Winning Coach, Speaker and Author, Jenny Garrett for an interactive talk. She will introduce us to the concept of imposter syndrome and look at what it really means. She aims to help us begin to uncover what our drives are, and learn how to identify, challenge and replace unhelpful thoughts and beliefs. She uses her years of experience in coaching and leadership to inspire and motivate people, working with them to deliver career and life changing results beyond expectation.
And if that’s not enough, we’ll be singing our hearts out, hearing stories from members of the community, drinking a vat of tea/coffee and eating a heck of a lot of biscuits afterwards too.
BSL interpretation will be provided.
We can’t wait to see you there and have fun celebrating life with you all!
Sunday Assembly London is free to attend and runs entirely on donations. Please support us if you can to keep it free for those who can’t.
Start Up Or Start Down?
- 6th August 2017, 11:00am
- Guest speaker: Richard Ashcroft
It’s summer!
Which means it’s much easier to get up in the morning, come to a Sunday Assembly, feel brilliant about the world and step into the rest of your Sunday with joy.
That and you’ll be a little bit smarter because we’ll have Richard Ashcroft, Professor of Bioethics in the School of Law at Queen Mary University of London, where he teaches medical law, bioethics, and human rights as our main speaker.
He’s going to talk about “disruptive innovation”, why some people are so keen on it and what it means for human imagination and human dignity.
Put more simply, he will talk about why ethics matters in innovation and why it is hard to innovate ethically. He will argue that innovation should be tied to hopes for humanity, not simply schemes for “getting rich quick”.
Richard has been teaching in medical schools and law schools in the UK for just over 20 years now, and has published widely in the fields of research ethics, ethical aspects of public health and health promotion, and issues in genetics. At the moment he’s writing a book about utopias and biotechnology. FANCY!
As well as this mind bending talk, we’ll be singing our hearts out, hearing stories from members of the community, drinking a vat of tea/coffee and eating a heck of a lot of biscuits afterwards too.
BSL interpretation will be provided.
We can’t wait to see you there and have fun celebrating life with you all!
Sunday Assembly London is free to attend and runs entirely on donations. Please support us if you can to keep it free for those who can’t.
WTF! (What The Fly?)
The very incredible Colin McClure is our speaker this week. You might see him greeting you on the door most weeks, but he’s also got a PhD in Flies!
As a Biologist, he is passionate about how mother nature navigates the problems and limitations of life. To do this, he works with one of its most wonderful solutions, the humble fruit fly.
But why do researchers work with them?
Can they teach us anything?
Why should we care?
In all, WTF? (What, the fly?)
On our journey, he’ll be weaving in and out of the diverse planes of biology which flies have illuminated; from sleep to sex, from dinner to disease, from genes to gender. If you had any doubts about how great flies were, Colin is going to give you a glimpse into their beauty and complexity, and how understanding just a little bit of their biology can give us an immense appreciation and wonder to how unique, capable and amazing we are as human beings.
And if that’s not enough, we’ll be singing our hearts out, hearing stories from members of the community, drinking a vat of tea/coffee and eating a heck of a lot of biscuits afterwards too.
BSL interpretation will be provided.
We can’t wait to see you there and have fun celebrating life with you all!
Sunday Assembly London is free to attend and runs entirely on donations. Please support us if you can to keep it free for those who can’t.
Too Sensitive For Science?
This is the first of our three part Equality Season.
Dr Emily Grossman is an expert in molecular biology and genetics, with a Double First from Cambridge and a PhD in cancer research.
In June 2015 she took part in a debate on Sky News following Sir Tim Hunt’s comments on women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). One of the points she made was that it’s OK for female scientists to cry. Following the interview she received a torrent of sexist and misogynistic abuse on social media. She is coming to tell us about her experience, her knowledge and her response.
Emily will be talking about the need to get rid of the super outdated stereotype that all scientists are cold, unemotional…and male. A stereotype that prevents many young people, especially girls, from seeing a place for themselves in science. She will explore the value of emotions in science and in society, in both men and in women, and tell us how emotional openness can lead to three Cs; Compassion, Collaboration and Creativity – qualities that are as essential in science as they are in life.
And if that’s not enough, we’ll be singing our hearts out, hearing stories from members of the community, drinking a vat of tea/coffee and eating a heck of a lot of biscuits afterwards too.
BSL interpretation will be provided.
We can’t wait to see you there and have fun celebrating life with you all!
Sunday Assembly London is free to attend and runs entirely on donations. Please support us if you can to keep it free for those who can’t.
How Racist is the UK?
Part Two of Our Three Part Equality Season
With recent global elections and racial conflicts in communities, it is clear that xenophobia and racism remain current issues that need to be addressed. However, we’re so often unaware of how racism functions in contemporary British society or how to uproot it in our daily lives.
We are being joined by Camille Barton, who will explore the idea that racism is worst in countries such as the USA. She will speak about how this may also be a source of apathy and confusion when navigating these issues in a UK context. This talk will explore strategies to dismantle racism with a compassionate approach, utilising examples from Camille’s time living and engaging in social justice work in the USA and the UK.
Camille Barton is a movement artist, diversity consultant, producer and the founding director of The Collective Liberation Project, an organisation that designs experiential workshops to teach people about oppression and equip them with the tools to transform racist and sexist behaviour. Camille has worked with clients including Sisters Uncut and SOAS.
Having studied International Relations at The University of Sussex, Camille understands global power dynamics but is most passionate about how the fusion of art and politics can lead to social change. While living in The USA she was inspired by training in restorative justice and peer counselling which supported her work as a youth worker in West Oakland. Improvisation, prefigurative politics and Afrofuturism are at the core of Camille’s art practice.
Prior to establishing The Collective Liberation Project in 2016, Camille worked in Arts and event production for over five years. She production managed projects at a range of events and festivals including Burning Man, Glastonbury, Nowhere, Boomtown Fair and Symbiosis. In 2016 Camille co-produced The Sisterhood, Glastonbury festival’s first women only venue, and incorporated a strong focus on intersectionality and providing a platform for women of colour.
And if that’s not enough, we’ll be singing our hearts out, hearing stories from members of the community, drinking a vat of tea/coffee and eating a heck of a lot of biscuits afterwards too.
BSL interpretation will be provided.
We can’t wait to see you there and have fun celebrating life with you all!
Sunday Assembly London is free to attend and runs entirely on donations. Please support us if you can to keep it free for those who can’t.
Gendered Intelligence
What is gender? How do you know someone’s gender? What about those who feel or express their gender in ways that go against social norms?
Who are trans people? And what does it mean to value and celebrate gender diversity in our society?
These are the questions Dr Jay Stewart, CEO and co-founder of Gendered Intelligence, will pose.
For the 1 October, we are partnering with Gendered Intelligence, a not for profit organisation aiming to increase understandings of gender diversity and improving the quality of lives of trans people, and young trans people in particular.
He will offer some insight and tools to get us thinking about how the wider context for trans identities – how sex, gender and sexual orientation interact, explore some key terms and begin to explore how each community, group or organisation can ensure it is inclusive of trans people.
This is the third of three parts in our Equality Season.
And if that’s not enough, we’ll be singing our hearts out, hearing stories from members of the community, drinking a vat of tea/coffee and eating a heck of a lot of biscuits afterwards too.
BSL interpretation will be provided.
We can’t wait to see you there and have fun celebrating life with you all!
Sunday Assembly London is free to attend and runs entirely on donations. Please support us if you can to keep it free for those who can’t.
Start Thinking Like A Toddler
Oh hello you big kid!
Have you almost forgotten how to think like a child? This talk, from the pretty flipping impressive Paul Lindley will show us that the key to unlocking our personal potential is not by learning new skills, but by rediscovering old ones, ones we all had when we were toddlers. Paul will invite us to grow down and as we do so he’ll open up the world of imagination, free thinking and self confidence that was once the way we rolled.
His talk will remind us that it’s not the big and powerful who should inspire us, but the small and young – those uncorrupted by convention and routine. In thinking like a toddler again, we can find those little wins, small things that end up making big differences to our lives.
Paul Lindley is an award winning British entrepreneur, social campaigner and best-selling author. In 2006 he founded Ella’s Kitchen, an innovative brand of organic baby food built on a core social mission. It’s now the UK’s largest and has sales of over $100M from across 40 countries. In 2014 he co-founded The Key is E, supporting African entrepreneurs whose social businesses benefit children. If you’re not already feeling a bit like this guy might have done enough, this year he published his first book: ‘Little Wins: The Huge Power of Thinking Like a Toddler’.
As well as all of that he is a trustee of Sesame Workshop, creators of Sesame Street who help kids be smarter, stronger and kinder. And a director of Bite the Ballot, who seek to ensure young people have a voice in society, and advises social enterprise Toast Ale, and Robert F Kennedy Human Rights in the UK. Paul believes the best businesses make profits AND have a core purpose to do social good.
And on top of this great talk we’ll be doing our usual: mass singalongs to some of our favourite power ballads, an awesome spoken word artist, hearing a story from a member of our community and drinking a vat of tea afterwards!
We’re excited to see you there!
Sunday Assembly London is free to attend and runs entirely on donations. Please support us if you can to keep it free for those who can’t.
Stuff School Never Taught YOu
What didn’t you learn at school?
How to do project management? How to present a budget? How to deal with a horrible manager? All the things we just don’t know about!
We are being joined by Tom Ravenscroft from Enabling Enterprise who was a teacher before he found that teaching the syllabus wasn’t enough. He believes that there is something fundamental missing in education, that knowledge and good grades are not enough.
He says:
‘All of us, whatever we do, need some essential skills which go beyond the academic – to work with others, to manage ourselves, to communicate effectively, and to creatively solve problems. We draw on them as much as numeracy or literacy. So why, as an education system, don’t we value these skills even as employers, universities and entrepreneurs cry out for them?’
Tom will be reflecting on a decade of building these skills through an award-winning social enterprise with over 150,000 children and young people to ask this critical question and more: Why are we so quick to presume these skills are innate, or just picked up along the way? How are they really built and how can we use this knowledge as teachers, parents, or even in our own lives?
He’ll also look at how with us facing a future of automation, when these skills are going to be paramount, what would it take to ensure that everyone mastered them?
Tom Ravenscroft founded Enabling Enterprise in 2009, whilst a business and economics teacher in Hackney in East London. The social enterprise is driven to ensure that children and young people of all backgrounds develop the essential skills they need to be successful, alongside good qualifications. Now a national organisation, Enabling Enerprise worked with over 85,000 students in the last year, in partnership with over 130 top employers from NHS hospitals to airports to accountants.
And on top of this great talk we’ll be doing our usual: mass singalongs to some of our favourite power ballads, an awesome spoken word artist, hearing a story from a member of our community and drinking a vat of tea afterwards!
We’re excited to see you there!
Sunday Assembly London is free to attend and runs entirely on donations. Please support us if you can to keep it free for those who can’t.
Imagining The Invisible
How has our perception of the universe and our place in it shifted as scientists have created ways to image what has never been seen before?
From snapshots of the entire universe to microscopic molecules, our awesome speaker, Yolanda Ohene, is going to take us on a visual voyage. Using beautiful, iconic and outstanding images, she will explain the science behind them and ask: what really is the art of science that has made imaging the invisible possible and shaped our imagination?
Flipping heck! We’re excited for this one and to have Yolanda with us! Her research focuses on the development of new MRI techniques to better understand neurodegenerative disease such as Alzheimer’s Disease. Alongside her research, Yolanda is an avid science communicator being a BBC BAME Expert Voice, presenting at events, science festivals and schools.
As well as this awe inspiring, wonder more talk, we’ll be doing our usual: mass singalongs to some of our favourite power ballads, an awesome spoken word artist, hearing a story from a member of our community and drinking a vat of tea afterwards!
We’re excited to see you there!
Sunday Assembly London is free to attend and runs entirely on donations. Please support us if you can to keep it free for those who can’t.
Out With The Old
For our penultimate gathering of 2017, we are being joined by ritual designer, Tiu de Haan. She is going to give us a rough guide to ritual making and how to make the most of your moments, big and small, that made up your 2017.
As well as learning the basic art of ritual design, she will give us the tools and techniques to create our very own rituals for completion and celebration, letting go of what has happened and welcoming in what is to come.
Tiu is going to guide us through creating our own ritual for letting go of this year and looking into the new!
She says:
“Our lives are made up of moments, meaningful or mundane – but moment after moment make up our days. The thing is, often as not, they pass by in a blur, as we race through our days, weeks and months, hurrying through our to do list, barely pausing for long enough to catch our breath and notice our journey as we fly on by our lives.”
So come and learn to make a homemade ritual for you can carry out when you’ve got the time and space to reflect, release and reboot for the new year ahead!
Tiu De Haan creates moments of meaning and magic, designing experiences that connect us to our creativity, to each other, to ourselves and to the possibility of wonder.
She is an Oxford educated ritual designer, creative facilitator, voiceover artist and singer, working with people of all values and beliefs to help them to celebrate the transitions of love, life and death. As a creative facilitator, she reminds individuals and organisations how to play, get creative and shift their perspective so that they see the world afresh, as well as working with organisations to bring ritual design into culture change.
As well as this awe inspiring, wonder more talk, we’ll be doing our usual: mass singalongs to some of our favourite power ballads, an awesome spoken word artist, hearing a story from a member of our community and drinking a vat of tea afterwards!
We’re excited to see you there!
Sunday Assembly London is free to attend and runs entirely on donations. Please support us if you can to keep it free for those who can’t.
The Science of Santa
- 17th December 2017, 11:00am
- Guest speaker: Russell Arnott
It’s our last Sunday Assembly London gathering of the year and we’re going out in style!
We are welcoming back one of our favourite speakers, Russell Arnott (Plankton talk & Octopus talk).
As well as being a marine biologist and an incredible science communicator, Russell Arnott has been working on a very important project. He has been working out how to help us understand just how it is that Santa can deliver all of those presents in time.
He might also accidentally instigate Sunday Assembly’s first indoor snowball fight. All in the name of science!
Come and join us for a very jolly time, with some of our favourite festive classics for our singalongs and lots of festive jumpers!
As well as this awe inspiring, wonder more talk, we’ll be doing our usual: mass singalongs to some of our favourite power ballads, an awesome spoken word artist, hearing a story from a member of our community and drinking a vat of tea afterwards!
We’re excited to see you there!
Sunday Assembly London is free to attend and runs entirely on donations. Please support us if you can to keep it free for those who can’t.
