Our assemblies in January-June 2022

11:00 am, June 19 2022

Conway Hall / Online

Speaker: Lots

Poet: Lots

It’s my PARTY and I’ll DRY if I want to

Happy New Year, and happy 9th birthday to Sunday Assembly! We’ve got a lot to celebrate, but we want to make sure we’re celebrating in a way that is completely by choice, not hindered by social pressure or habit. That’s why we’ve invited Laura Willoughby, co-founder of Club Soda, to be our main speaker at this assembly. She will teach us all about ‘mindful drinking’, and how we can empower ourselves to make conscious decisions about our alcohol consumption.

This assembly will be hosted by street art blogger at Inspiring City, Stu Holdsworth. We’ll get this party started with some rockin’ tunes performed by the Sunday Assembly band as well as our returning guest performer, Gecko! And a community member will give a talk about their own mindful drinking journey.

Please stay after for tea, biscuits, and engaging conversations with members of our community. And later in the afternoon we’ll take a group trip to Club Soda’s pop-up storefront to taste some delicious alcohol-free beverages.

Lunch at Nando’s after the assembly:

Sex on the Brain

The more we study biology across the animal kingdom, the more we learn what a special evolutionary gift human sexual pleasure is. The fact that it has been deliberately maligned, misunderstood, and stigmatised throughout history should make us feel even more grateful that we live in a time when we can be free to express our true selves.

In celebration of Valentine’s Day, Zoe Cormier, science communicator and author of ‘Sex, Drugs, and Rock n’ Roll: The Science of Hedonism and the Hedonism of Science’ will share some amusing anecdotes which reveal deeper truths about human desire.

This assembly will be hosted by poet and author Anj Cairns. As always, the Sunday Assembly Band will help you get your groove on, and we’ll hear some poetry and words from members of our community. Please stay after for tea, biscuits, and engaging conversations.

Becoming what you are

No one chooses where they come from. Some of us are born with more advantages than others. But in the long run, it’s the choices we make in our lives that determine our success or failure. Sasha Gay Smith, founder and director of the London-based company I AM IN ME, will talk to us about what motivates her to guide young people on their journeys to improve their lives and become their absolute best selves.

In addition to the main talk we invite you to sing along to some epic tunes with the Sunday Assembly band. We’ll also have a special performance by our choir as well as a talk by a Sunday Assembler who is “Trying Their Best”. Please stay after for tea, biscuits, and engaging conversations with members of our community.

Thinking Like a Woman

Eleanor Roosevelt once famously said, “A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until it’s in hot water.” At the start of the pandemic George Halfin, project manager at a national charity, Innate Health coach, and mum of two found herself in ‘hot water’. Furloughed from her job, struggling with home-schooling and with her husband’s work also in flux she began thinking seriously about her situation and the state of the world. At risk of drowning in the negative chatter of her personal thinking, she reached out for a lifeline: she was lucky enough to know other women who had learned a way through their own struggles.

In celebration of International Women’s Day, George will speak to us about what she learned from these women, and how they motivated her to bring their inspiring stories together in her book, “A Life Less Serious.”

This event will be hosted by author and poet Anj Cairns. As always, we invite you to sing your hearts out along with the Sunday Assembly band, enjoy poetry, and hear from a member of our community who is Trying Their Best. Please stay after for tea, biscuits, and engaging conversations with others.

Detoxing Masculinity

  • 20th March 2022, 11:00am
  • Speaker: Jerry Hyde
  • Poet: Keith Jarrett

From violence against women and girls, to shocking mental health outcomes for men – how do we heal masculinity to create a better world for all people? Bringing men into the feminist fold is essential, but can be tough. There’s a lot of toxicity out there blocking the way to self-work, men’s work, the work of allyship – and men can feel called out and shamed in the face of righteous anger. But the work is happening, so: join us for a positive experience of masculinity and being called-in. Together, we can all live better.

Hosted by poet and educator Dan Simpson, this assembly will feature the psychotherapist, filmmaker, and leader of men’s groups for over 20 years, Jerry Hyde, as our main speaker. We are also thrilled to welcome Keith Jarrett as our poet. As always, we invite you to sing your hearts out along with the Sunday Assembly band and stay after for tea, biscuits, and engaging conversations with others.

Mind your Language

In our modern world, we have become accustomed to the idea that people speak different languages in different places, and that all we need to do is tap a ‘translate’ button to decipher the code. But languages are more nuanced than that, and it can be difficult to make direct translations. Take, for instance, the warning label found within everyone’s favourite ‘toy-within-a-chocolate-egg’. Because these ovoid confections are sold globally, the enclosed miniature Rosetta Scroll needs to be understood in no less than 34 languages! Each language has its own cultural history and flavour.

Keith Kahn-Harris, author of “The Babel Message: A Love Letter to Language” believes that the messy diversity of language shouldn’t be a source of conflict, but of collective wonder. 

In addition to Keith’s talk, the Sunday Assembly Band will use the language of music to bring us together, and we’ll hear wild and wordy poetry from Andrew Rea [sic]. The icing on our lexical cake will be a talk from community member Hanna Finn in a segment we call This Much I Know. Stick around after for tea and meaningful chat with others.


Sunday Assembly’s Got Talent

Friday 8th April 2022, 8:00pm

Do you like to tell jokes? Juggle? Play an instrument? Now’s your time to shine in Sunday Assembly London’s first-ever talent show! This all-ages event will be made by you and for you. We’re looking for a wide range of acts, from poets and storytellers to magicians and musicians. So polish up your circus acts and your dancing shoes and sign up to take part. And don’t worry if you’ve never performed before. The audience will be filled with family and friends who want to support you and cheer you on.

Emcee’d by the Host with the Most, Sanderson Jones, we’re amping up the fun with a bingo game and a raffle! Sunday Assembly’s Got Talent is a fundraising event for Sunday Assembly London, a secular community that celebrates life under the motto “Live Better, Help Often, Wonder More.” All money raised from this event will go towards sustaining our programming for this talented community.

The uneggspected: Tales of lost and found

  • 17th April 2022, 11:00am
  • Speaker: Rina Atienza
  • Performer: Harriet Braine

During the medieval times of Western Christianity, abstinence from eating flesh meat, which included eggs, was part of the Lenten fast, a 40-day period of penitential preparation that starts after Shrove Tuesday (aka Pancake Day). Nowadays, Easter is celebrated with the decadence of chocolate goods.

But long before the packaged consumption of sugar, artists embraced the idea of hiding secret images in their work, hoping that others would see and appreciate them. Rina Atienza, our main speaker, is a lecturer at Kingston School of Art who will show us some of these hidden ‘easter eggs’ and irreverently guide us to explore what we might be missing about this ritual.

Our fun-and-chocolate-filled Easter assembly will be hosted by the co-founder of Sunday Assembly and founder of the Lifefulness Project, Sanderson Jones. In addition to Rina’s talk we will enjoy a performance by musical comedian Harriet Braine. As always, we will have an eggshell-ent time singing along with the Sunday Assembly Band. Stay after for tea, biscuits, and engaging conversations with others.

The Art of Protest

In 1998, actor and playwright William Talen became so angered by the mass consumerism that had taken over city life in New York that he began protesting in Times Square. But it wasn’t a normal protest; it was more like a performance. He developed an over-the-top Billy Graham-esque character, and accompanied by a choir filled with people who believed as he did – that shopping culture was destroying communities as well as the planet – his irreverent act grew from a street act into a movement.

In 2021, as Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir made plans to tour the UK to spread their message of earth-consciousness leading up to COP26 in Glasgow, they invited some of their British followers to join them. Now Stop Shopping UK is embarking on their own journey, and they’ll share their story and their message with us through speech and song.

In addition to the main talk and performance, we will hear from a member of our community who is Trying Their Best. As always, we will have rebellious rocking sing-along songs with the Sunday Assembly Band. Stay after for tea, biscuits, and engaging conversations with others.

Periods of Change

Chella Quint, science communicator, educator, and comedian, coined the term ‘period positive’ for the 2006 tour of her “Adventures in Menstruating” comedy show and workshops. During the tour, she realised that more and more people were looking for a way to teach a positive approach to menstruation education. Her goal is to counter all of the negative portrayals of periods in the media, which lead young people to feel shame and disgust about their bodies.

In addition to the main talk and performance, we will hear from a member of our community who is Trying Their Best to deal with a period of change. And as always, we will enjoy some positively excellent sing-along songs with the Sunday Assembly Band. Stay after for tea, biscuits, and engaging conversations with others.


How to make an apple pie from scratch

Thanks to some pesky particles, we had to cancel our final assembly of 2021. But the good news is that we were able to reschedule our speaker from that assembly, particle physicist Harry Cliff, for our 5th of June Jubilations! While exploring the history of time (very briefly) starting from a fraction of a second after our universe began, Harry’s talk will include personal stories of his own life in the modern world of physics.

In addition to Harry’s talk, we’ll enjoy some out-of-this-world rock and pop sing-alongs led by our community band and hear poetry by David Lee Morgan. Please stay after for tea, apple pies, and engaging conversations with members of our community.

Queer Britain

  • 19th June 2022, 11:00am
  • Speaker: Dan Vo

Our main speaker, Dan Vo, is an award-winning LGBTQ+ tour coordinator and museum consultant. As the marketing manager for the new Queer Britain Museum, the UK’s first LGBTQ+ museum, he will talk to us about why it’s so important to have a place where people can go to learn about the history of queer culture.

In addition to Dan’s talk, we’ll hear poetry by Sanah Ahsan, a clinical psychologist and 2019 Outspoken Prize winner for Performance Poetry. And as always, we’ll sing our hearts out to pop and rock songs performed by our community band and hear the voices of our choir sing loud and proud. Please stay after for tea, biscuits, and engaging conversations with members of our community.

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