11:00 am, June 17 2018
Conway Hall
Speaker: Lots
Poet: Lots
It’s Our 5th Birthday!
- 7th January 2018, 11:00am
- Speaker: Rufus Hound
Happy birthday to us, happy birthday to us!
We all know that Sunday Assembly is there to help everyone celebrate life, but this gathering isn’t just a celebration, it’s a party! Bring your party hats and put on your party clothes. Get ready for an all star line up, including Rufus Hound as our speaker, who thought he might be a vicar some years ago, but then became a comedian, actor and all round TV & Radio superstar!
Tying in with our theme of Light in the Darkness, Rufus will be speaking about the role hope in our lives, how faith can provide it and how those without faith can still can embrace it. He told us that his first idea was ‘to cover myself in sparklers and run down The Tube but the so called “Health and Safety” brigade said it was “stupid” to the “point of borderline psychotic”.’
He hopes you enjoy it!
We will be singing some of our favourite power ballads from over the last five years, looking back on how far we (each and every one of us) have come in the last five years and looking into the future (like Mystic Meg but without the crystal ball) and to all the wonder we can bring to the world.
See you there party poppers!
Imagine a World Where
- 21st January 2018, 11:00am
- Speaker: James Turner
James Turner is the founder of a creative collective called Glimpse, which allows creative people to use their skills for good. Instead of talking about the problem, they show a glimpse of a more positive world that’s just out of view. Previous projects include the Citizens Advertising Takeover Service (CATS) and more recently Choose Love, the world’s first store that sells real products for refugees.
He will be talking about what we can learn as individuals from his experience of creating campaigns that make change and why on earth they decided to fill an entire tube station with pictures of cats!
James will speak about why he thinks the key to a positive vision is the idea of imagining a world where we fix these problems rather than just criticising them.
Get ready to be inspired!
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.
Embrace The Skin You’re In
- 4th February 2018, 11:00am
- Speaker: Megan Crabbe
- Poet: Mr Gee
- Trying My Best community speaker: Harri Rose
- Also featuring: The Insecurity Guards
Forget those post-festive diets and come and remember why you and your brilliant body are beautiful, at this inspiring Sunday Assembly!
We are being joined by Megan Crabbe, writer of the bestselling book, Body Positive Power. Megan began having body image issues when she was 5 years old, and her early obsession with losing weight spiralled into anorexia by age 14. She spent 2 years in and out of residential psychiatric units, was hospitalised, and nearly lost her life, until she began recovery at 16. After several more years of hating her body and chasing thinness, she discovered the body positivity movement online, made peace with her body, and started her Instagram page bodyposipanda to spread the body positive message.
She now teaches her 880,000 followers how they can overcome their body image issues as well, has written a bestselling book on body positivity called Body Positive Power, and gives talks on body image in schools and at events across the country. She’s also a full-time carer for her older sister, who has cerebral palsy.
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.
Rolling Towards Change
- 18th February 2018, 11:00am
- Speaker: Amy Oulton
Come and join us for an incredible talk by Amy Oulton.
Amy is a force for good with a sack full of stories which we can’t wait to listen to!
She has Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a rare genetic condition that causes weak tissues, joint dislocations, chronic pain and fatigue. Due to this syndrome she has been a wheelchair user for the past ten years. In spite of this, Amy lives an exciting and hugely positive life, travelling the world and recording her journeys with Buzzfeed, working as a graphic designer for a charity and campaigning to change the way society understands disability. Most recently, Amy’s spoken at Tedx Brighton 2017 about societal perceptions of disability.
Amy is coming to speak to us about her life as a disabled person today, including her travels round the world in a wheelchair. Her talk will also be about why disabled people need allies and how you can help push forward social change.
We also have the awesome poet, ‘Your Friend The Poet’ and a member of our community who is telling us about how they’re trying their best! If that’s not enough, we have power ballads dancing out of our fingers and toes and a vat of tea and coffee for after.
See you there you superstars!
The Importance of Being Weird
- 4th March 2018, 11:00am
- Speaker: Adam Larter
We’re planning to get playful at this brilliant Sunday gathering! We’re being joined by the very silly and very brilliant Adam Larter.
Adam is a comedy performer, writer and director best known for creating and running the Weirdos Comedy Collective who have been making unusual comedy in London for 8 years and have raised thousands for charity with their annual pantomimes. They have sold out Leicester Square with a surreal Harry Potter parody and recently performed a play on ice with comedy hero Tony Law.
He’ll be joining us to talk about why it’s important to be weird. He believes that we can all be weird, that it’s a choice not something you’re born with.
Adam will delve into our imaginations to help us realise how even normal people can be weird and how easy it is to be cool with other people’s weird.
He might do something weird in the speech. But probably not.
So come along and get weird. Or not!
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!
‘hey Sunday Assembly! Ive been wanting to come to Assembly for ages now and finally today i made it! i had an absolutely wonderful time. i laughed! felt warm inside! and was so touched. The poet and speaker were fantastic and the ..Marta Pomare…..is trying her best was so powerful, helped me so much, and such a genius concept. WoW! I feel so grateful for this morning! See you again soon and thanks for having me’ Nicky Freedman via Facebook
How To Get A Lemon Into Space
- 18th March 2018, 11:00am
- Speaker: Vijay Shah
Imagine you have a lemon that you really want to get into space. How do you go about it? How much fuel do you need? Where exactly is Space?
With a lemon for a visual aid, scientist, awesome communicator and space cadet, Vijay Shah will be joining us to answer all these questions and more, leaving us all feeling like rocket scientists as part of British Science Week!
Vijay has spent over three years travelling and on expedition in six of the world’s continents, but there has been one place that has mesmerised him since childhood – that is the vastness of Space.
Humans have barely dipped a toe into the Universe, and so his professional explorations are in the realms of aerospace engineering developing the next generation of aircraft and spacecraft to explore this planet and beyond. Vijay is an aerospace engineer at Reaction Engines Ltd developing hypersonic propulsion systems to revolutionise space access. He has worked in the industry for over 10 years across Europe, pushing the boundaries in the fields of aviation and aerospace. Vijay was on BBC 2 series ‘ASTRONAUTS: Do You Have What It Takes?’ during which twelve candidates endured challenges such as hovering a helicopter, taking their own blood and speaking Russian while in a centrifuge at 5g.
By the end of the Assembly you will have rocketed your feel good factor, with power ballads, spoken word, stories from the community and a big old fun time!
Sunday Assembly Lates: Five Rhyming Lines for Better Sexual Times
- Thursday 22nd March, 7:30pm
- Speaker: Alix Fox
We are so excited to launch our first ever Sunday Assembly Lates fundraiser!
This is an adult only, evening gathering, with a glass of wine (if you like), which is ticketed to raise funds for Sunday Assembly London!
If you sometimes struggle to get up on a Sunday (or know someone who does) and would love to come to a Sunday Assembly where we can talk about things that aren’t suitable for children’s ears, this one is for YOU!
We have the unbelievably brilliant Alix Fox as our speaker, who is going to wow us with “Five Rhyming Lines for Better Sexual Times”. Nope, she’s not going to talk in poetry, but she is going to share a handful of the most important things she’s learnt about loving ourselves, loving others, and having more satisfying, uplifting experiences of sex – presented as snappy, fappy, memorable sayings designed to help you be more mindful of achieving optimally pleasurable, positive, spirit-lifting sauciness.
Alix Fox is a multi award-winning journalist/broadcaster/sex educator. She presents The Guardian’s award-winning sex & relationships real-life storytelling podcast, Close Encounters, which reached #7 in the worldwide iTunes podcast chart, and she is now co-host of a brand new sex comedy show for BBC Radio 1 – Unexpected Fluids, which starts this May. She’s a proud Ambassador for sexual wellbeing charity Brook; was shortlisted as Media Woman of the Future 2017; and wrote a chapter on love in Penguin book Life Lessons From remarkable Women, released March 8th.
Known for her immediately recognisable written voice and non-judgmental, joyous, entertaining yet educational style; ability to put folks from all backgrounds at ease even when discussing tricky themes; and warm, humorous way of connecting to people, Alix certainly raises eyebrows – along with raising spirits, raising the roof, and raising the bar on how we approach human relationships.
And as well as that we’ll have our jazz band welcoming you through the doors, some awesome power ballads and all the best Sunday Assembly joy (but at night!).
Come have fun while raising some pennies for this fantastic community!
Over 18’s only.
The Sound of Science
- 15th April 2018, 11:00am
- Speaker: Dr Elaine Chew
The links between music and mathematics can be traced back to the ancient Greeks, but how much do we recognise the patterns as we listen to our favourite tunes?
We’re being joined by Dr Elaine Chew, who will be delving into the geometry of musical sounds, and how performers and composers manipulate them to generate or violate expectations. Elaine has been working at the interplay of digital media and music to research how a machine, standing on the shoulders of the composer giants, copies rhythms and aspects of tonal expectation to make refreshing and convincing new music. She has been using this research to then turn to human physiology.
This mesmerising talk will take us on a mystery tour of the heart with Elaine showing us the beauty in the abnormal. She will show us how she takes the rhythms stolen from the electrical activity of abnormal heartbeats to produce natural-sounding music.
How about that for some #wondermore?
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!
OK Computer?
- 6th May 2018, 11:00am
- Speaker: Jonny Brooks-Bartlett
- Host: Rufus Hound
Come and join us for a demystifying gathering all about the sometimes very scary and sometimes mega cool science of artificial intelligence!
We have data scientist, mathematician and all round AI geek, Jonny Brooks-Bartlett joining us. Jonny is passionate about all things AI, science and the history of the people behind the science.
At this gathering he’s going to share his learnings from the University of Oxford as well as through his own experience of writing machine learning algorithms to explain what AI really is and how it works today. He will explore what the vision of AI in the future wis and whether we should all be worried about AI becoming a bit TOO intelligent!
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!
Grief
20th May 2018, 11:00am
Speaker: Cariad Lloyd
How do we grieve for someone? How does it change and evolve as we get older? Cariad Lloyd’s father died when she was 15 leaving her with emotions she had no language for. So, she created Griefcast for herself and other comedians to talk, share and laugh about the weirdness of grieving and death. Each time she talks to a different comedian about their own personal feelings of loss.
What has talking incessantly about death taught her and how similar is the process of grieving for us all?
Come and find out at this grief themed gathering, where we will celebrate this life we have in all it’s brilliance, sadness and laughter.
Cariad is an award-winning comedian, actor, writer and improviser. She has been seen on QI, Have I Got News For You, Toast of London, Murder in Successville, 8 out of 10 Cats does Countdown and Peep Show, and is also heard on The News Quiz, The Now Show and The Museum of Curiosity on Radio 4. She is a member of Austentatious: An Improvised Jane Austen Novel, who are currently performing at the Savoy Theatre in the West End and she is the host and creator of Griefcast, a podcast about death with comedians, which is cheerier than it sounds.
As well as this brilliant 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!
The Bland & The Boundless
- 3rd June 2018, 11:00am
- Speaker: Ahir Shah
On the 3 June we’re being joined by the amazing Ahir Shah, who is going to explore how the small, boring details can inspire us into the boundless possibilities of the universe! He says:
“A little while ago I was on the Manchester Metrolink and found myself frustratedly turning up the brightness on my phone screen. I was trying to read some article and was annoyed that I couldn’t concentrate properly, because the brightness on my phone was losing in a battle against the sun.
This will be a talk about technology, nature, mental health and the human animal in a hyperconnected world.”
Ahir a stand-up comedian and writer. His most recent live show, Control, was nominated for Best Show at the 2017 Edinburgh Comedy Awards and he’s recently completed a national tour including three weeks at the Soho Theatre in London. He is currently working on a new stand-up show called Duffer, about life and what comes after, death and what comes before, and Bohemian Rhapsody.
As well as this funny and 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!
Does it Help to Help?
- 17th June 2018, 11:00am
- Speaker: Dr Pritpal S Tamber
One of our founding principles is to Help Often, but we have a speaker coming to question that idea and talk about another way forward!
Dr Pritpal S Tamber has been researching communities and health, looking at what is needed for people to be well and has found that social circumstances, from economic opportunity to access to fresh food might not be the main factor on health after all. He says that “over the last five and a half years, I have come to understand what really matters and how ‘help’ may be the last thing that anyone needs”. He’ll explore how if individuals and communities do not have ‘agency’ – the ability to make purposeful decisions – then everything else is harder.
Come and be wowed by this incredible speaker, researcher and #wondermore superstar. Pritpal is the CEO and Co-Founder of Bridging Health & Community, a nonprofit in the US seeking to transform how health care works with communities, and the Founder of Beyond Systems, a UK-based project seeking to nurture the field of practice that is based on parity, trust and an equal voice for all.
He is the former Physician Editor of TEDMED, TED’s dedicated health event. It was in that role he realised that the potential in ‘innovation’ in health was dwarfed by the size of problems, especially in communities in difficult social circumstances.
We’ll also 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, drinking a vat of tea afterwards and saying goodbye to our Community Creator, Ruth!
We’re excited to see you there!