From 2027, when Sunday Assembly London proudly reaches its 14th anniversary, we’ll be taking a different approach to how often we host assemblies. We’re keen for you, our community, to understand what’s happening and why.
What’s changing
Currently, we host assemblies on the first and third Sundays of the month (with the exception of our August break). From January 2027, our assemblies will be on the third Sunday of the month only.
What’s not changing
The format of our assemblies – combining secular talks, poetry, pop singalongs and socialising over tea and biscuits, all free – will stay the same. So will our home at the Backyard Comedy Club.
Our activities between assemblies will continue throughout the year – from picnics and gallery visits to karaoke and ice cream crawls – driven by you, and helping us all to keep building the Sunday Assembly London community.
Why we’re making this decision
As ever, the values we’ve held since we started – Live Better, Help Often, Wonder More – are guiding us.
Sunday Assembly London’s volunteers are proud to have brought you hundreds of informative, inspiring assemblies since 2013. Beyond what you see on the day, each assembly entails a huge amount of work behind the scenes, freely given by this skilled, talented but ultimately small team.
We are immensely grateful to those volunteers who have enabled us to continue having two assemblies a month for so long, when all our fellow Sunday Assembly communities around the UK and abroad are holding assemblies less frequently than that.
If our volunteers are vital then so is their wellbeing. Many of us know from our working lives that stress and burnout – our own or our colleagues’ – can have a major impact. Volunteering is no different. Given how few people are currently volunteering, we recognise that we can’t continue to pull off two assemblies a month without risking what makes us so special.
By protecting our volunteers, and ensuring that they aren’t prevented from Living Better, we’re protecting Sunday Assembly London’s future.
Some of you will have heard this news at today’s assembly (18th October). We’re also sharing it via our website, email and social media.
The benefits for everyone
Having only one assembly to plan for monthly will give us more capacity to do things that we’ve wanted to do for a while. These include:
- More community events and informal get-togethers
- Further enhancing the quality of assemblies
- Growing the community by exploring more ways to get people attending and donating
These too will strengthen our ability to sustain Sunday Assembly London and this community.
How you can help
We know how special Sunday Assembly London is to so many people, and we never want that to change. So this is our opportunity to remind you that, as a small charity, we need all of you to play your part.
As well as continuing to join us at assemblies, please ask yourself if you can:
- Commit to volunteering with us if you don’t already
- Organise one-off events and meetups
- Keep donating
- Invite friends, flatmates, colleagues and other newcomers to give us a try
- Interact with our social media posts to help them reach more people
In whatever way you give back, you’ll be helping to keep Sunday Assembly London going for all of us.
We’re here to answer your questions. Email us at london@sundayassembly.com or speak with our Co-ordination Crew Lead (Gwawr) or our trustees (Aaron, Temi, Emily, Karen) at one of our assemblies.
Thank you for being part of this brilliant community.
