Past events

Our guest speaker: John Graves

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.

He introduced us to some of the wisdom from our Ancient Agony Uncles – showing us how relevant these ideas still are and how closely they matched Sunday Assembly’s own three-part philosophy of living better, helping often and wondering more.

Our guest poet: Anna Herber

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

Watch one of Anna’s Sunday Assembly poetry readings on Instagram

Our guest speaker: Dr. Peter Altman

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. He shared some of his latest research from his third book, currently in production, Amazing Discoveries in Science.

Our guest poet: Kay Scorah

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

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.

We were joined by artist, musician and numberphobe-turned-numberphile Brook Tate. As someone who severely struggled with mainstream methods of education, he designed 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 also performed a song from his recent musical theatre piece.

Brook Tate’s website

Multicolour Maths website

This assembly was accompanied by our Winter Market.

According to the Slavery Footprint survey, the average family in the UK unknowingly employs 90 slaves, often hidden in plain sight.

Sunday Assembly’s own Dr Astrid Leuba has been working against modern slavery and human trafficking for many years. Formerly Head of Corporate Responsibility at British Airways, she is now developing anti-slavery strategy and policy for Cancer Research UK and was recently nominated as Star of the Year for her work by Unseen, a UK charity running the UK Modern Slavery & Exploitation Helpline and providing safehouses for survivors of modern slavery and human trafficking.

Astrid guided us through how we can learn to identify signs of potential modern slavery, knowing how to report them, and better understand this troubled system of which we are all a part.

We were also joined by spoken word artist Amy Anam Cara, whose work reflects on the impacts of colonialism and imperialism on mental health and the ways in which the comfort of the global North demands the continued oppression of the global South.

Wouldn’t we all love to do things just ‘because’, without the pressure to have a good reason?

Steve Chapman is an artist, writer, speaker, consultant and coach, who encourages people to do just that! Interested in creativity and the human condition, he works with individuals and organisations to find creative and counter-intuitive ways to help free themselves from ever-tightening loops of stuckness, shame and imperfection, nurturing, instead, the freedom of spontaneous self-expression, creativity and innovation.

Hanna Finn wrote:

‘Sunday Assembly featured a talk by artist Steve Chapman, who told us about his hilarious art projects which often include the general public in weird and wonderful ways.

We took several creative challenges from his book WTFebruary and smooshed them into one:

1. Use discarded materials (an orange window blind someone was throwing out)
2. Draw birds, badly. Add made up bird sounds and names.
3. Start your own art gallery

Alan and I workshopped the name of the gallery by asking the audience to give us adjectives and bird names, and then randomly choosing two words. Then everyone was encouraged to draw birds (badly) before I strung them onto black string.’

We also had poetry from Kay Scorah, a multi-skilled creative who brings 70 years of experiment, risk, rage and learning to her writing.

Is age just a number?

You may have heard of the Baby Boomers, the Millennials and Gen Z. But have you heard of the Young Olds, the Mid Olds or the Old Olds? As human life expectancy has increased, there have been significant step changes in the way we perceive our life stages and their significance, and new research is proffering ever more nuanced categorisations of our experiences as a distinct ‘Generation’.

Vivien Louizos is a Counsellor and Life Coach for young people and adults, with a special interest in developmental psychology. Her research centres on the emergence of new categories in the life cycle, and the influence of our chronological age on the choices and decisions that we make.

As we continue to live later and longer, how do the determinants of our life experience change? To what extent are we influenced in our life choices by our age, and the unique circumstances of our stage of life? How real is the phenomenon of ‘My Generation’ – and is it biology, psychology, or the idiosyncrasies of the times in which we are born?

We also had a multigenerational poetry slot, with Gale Burns and Nadira Clare Wallace each offering some spoken word across the generation gap.

Gale Burns wrote:

‘Great fun to read poetry at the Sunday Assembly (a secular celebration on a Sunday in Bethnal Green) with Nadira Clare Wallace on the theme of different generations. Drop by one week, and you get free cake!’

Photo credit: Gale Burns