Our assemblies in July-December 2018

11:00 am, December 16 2018

Conway Hall

Speaker: Lots

Poet: Lots

To Be Right or To Be Liked?

1st July 2018, 11:00am
Speaker: Gráinne Maguire

Our guest speaker on the 1 July is the amazing comedian and writer Gráinne Maguire. She is fascinated with our need to be right in arguments and conversations, whether it’s with our closest friends or our worst enemies. Come along to wonder more about where in your life you want to be right and where your life, you prefer to be liked!

As a comedy writer, Gráinne has written for Channel 4’s The Last Leg, 8 Out of 10 Cats, The Alternative Election Show and Radio 4’s The News Quiz, The Now Show, Dead Ringers, Ayres On Air and NewsJack.

We’ll also be doing our usual: Mass singalongs to some of our favourite power ballads, an awesome spoken word artist, hearing stories from a number of our community and drinking a vat of tea afterwards.

When Life Gives you Lemons

15th July 2018, 11:00am
Speaker: Beth Vyse

Life can be hard. The question is: how can we deal with it?

Our guest speaker on the 15th July knows all about this, she is comedian Beth Vyse. Beth will be bringing an honest and humorous account of her experiences in being diagnosed with breast cancer at 28 and how her ability to laugh at it all, got her through.

Expect a very personal story with some laughs thrown in, as Beth tells us about her journey of endurance and survival. Come along, be inspired and learn ways that can help you to deal with life’s most testing moments.

Beth Vyse is a comedian and actress who started her career at the RSC, Sheffield Crucible, Royal Court, Birmingham Rep and The Soho Theatre. She went on to perform comedy shows with as half of the double act Morris and Vyse. She now performs solo character comedy, and with The Weirdos Collective.

Summer Specials

5th and 19th August 2018, 11:00am

We’ve got something a little different planned for August. We’re taking Sunday Assembly outdoors for some spectacular summer specials. There’ll be singing, picnics, games, ukulele jams and much more. We’ve also got plans in case it rains!

The events on 5 and 19 August will take place in Lincoln’s Inn Fields from 11:00. Our lovely volunteers will be hanging out on the grass opposite the Margaret Edith MacDonald statue with a Sunday Assembly sign and some drinks! We’ll be there even if it’s raining to direct you to the wet weather activities, but we’ll update Twitter first!

It’s Never Too Late

2nd September 2018, 11:00am
Speaker: Eddie Brockelsby
Host: Rufus Hound

If you haven’t come along to a Sunday Assembly before, It’s Never Too Late to start now! In fact It’s never too late to start anything new, and this week we have inspirational Iron Gran, Eddie Brockelsby, sharing some of her experiences and reminding us just that!

Eddie was the oldest British women to complete an Ironman Triathalon and founded her company Silverfit to promote lifelong fitness – we are thrilled to have her speaking at this Sunday Assembly!

After a un-sporty youth Eddie herself only started running at the age of 50, and in 2015 at the age of 72, she became the oldest British woman to complete an Ironman Triathlon. Having experienced the benefits of exercise herself she is passionate about raising awareness of the benefits of exercise for the over 45’s. Through her company Silverfit she hopes to help the older population to find a way to take regular exercise that they enjoy, thus reducing the costs of Britain’s ageing population and helping members to live life to the full; independently and happily. In her previous life, the mother of three and grandmother of four was a social worker for 50 years, and she gained her PhD in 2007.

This Sunday Assembly will be hosted by comedian and presenter Rufus Hound and we have Your Friend The Poet doing some poetry for us!

Learning from Nature

16th September 2018, 11:00am
Speaker: Michael Pawlyn
Poet: The Repeat Beat Poet

With the change of season looming, our lives are starting to change gear, slowing down and getting a little more snug as we head into the Autumn months. Nature is changing and let’s learn from that with this week’s theme: LEARNING FROM NATURE.

We are so excited to have Architect Michael Pawlyn come to speak with us about how he uses nature in design. Michael established Exploration Architecture in 2007 to focus on designing high performance buildings and solutions for the circular economy. The company has developed a ground-breaking office project, an ultra-low energy data centre, a zero waste textiles factory and progressive solutions for green cities.

Prior to setting up Exploration Michael Pawlyn worked with Grimshaw for ten years and was central to the team that designed the Eden Project. He is regularly booked as a keynote speaker on innovation and, in 2011, became one of only a small handful of architects to have a talk posted on TED.com. His TED talk has since had over 1.8 million viewings.

The first edition of his book Biomimicry in Architecture has been RIBA Publications’ best-selling title and the second edition was published in October 2016. Michael Pawlyn jointly initiated the widely acclaimed Sahara Forest Project; the latest version of which was opened by the King of Jordan in 2017.

This Sunday Assembly will be hosted by comedian and presenter Rufus Hound and we have the incredible Repeat Beat Poet performing for us.

Living with our Sun

7th October 2018, 11:00am
Speaker: Harry Cliff
Poet: Gecko

We only have a few weeks left this side of daylight savings so lets take some time to focus on that bright star while it’s still with us!

The Sun makes life on Earth possible, but our nearest star is also unpredictable, violent and potentially dangerous. On the 1 September 1859 a huge eruption from the Sun slammed into the Earth, bathing skies across the world in lurid auroral lights and sending sparks flying from electrical equipment. Today, a ‘solar storm’ on that scale could devastate the technology we all rely on, knocking out electricity supplies and satellites for days, weeks or even months. Harry Cliff, the Curator of the Science Museum’s new blockbuster exhibition, The Sun – Living With Our Star, will explore the science of solar storms and the impact they can have on all our lives.

Harry Cliff is a particle physicist who works on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN and is a member of the LHCb collaboration, a large international team searching for signs of new particles and forces of nature in high-energy particle collisions. He is the Fellow of Modern Science at the Science Museum in London and curated their “Collider” exhibition as well as the more recent “Einstein’s Legacy”, which explores the scientific and cultural impact of Albert Einstein’s life and work.

This Sunday Assembly will be hosted by our co-founder Sanderson Jones and we have the playful poet Gecko performing for us.

The Rights of Women

21st October 2018, 11:00am
Speaker: Jaspreet Kaur

Our next Sunday Assembly will be part of the closing day of the Bloomsbury Festival, with the festival running a programme of rousing talks and vital debates on the subject of ‘The Rights of Women’ all Sunday long!

Named after Bloomsbury resident Mary Wollstonecraft’s famous 1792 paper, Rights of Woman, this Sunday Assembly will be all about celebrating women and asking: Where next?

We are very excited to have the award winning Jaspreet Kaur as our main speaker this week! Better known as Behind the Netra for her poetry, Jaspreet is an award-winning Spoken Word Artist and History teacher from East London focused on sharing her thoughts on gender issues, mental health stigma, historical topics and positive social change. Jaspreet actively works with national government, corporations and charities alike, such as TED, Westminster Interfaith Council and Action for Children, using her poetry to inspire and drive change. This year, Jaspreet had the honour of performing for Her Majesty the Queen and The Royal Family. Jaspreet truly believes that poetry can be used as a powerful tool for positive social.

This Sunday Assembly will be hosted by the wonderful Charlotte Coates and completing our all female line up this week will be Liz Evans who is Trying Her Best!

Sleep

4th November 2018, 11:00am
Speaker: Professor Vincent Walsh

What happens to our brain when we sleep? We are so excited to have Professor Vincent Walsh joining us this week, giving us an understanding our sleeping brain and why getting your 8 hours is so vitally important – the perfect Sunday morning lesson!

We are in the midst of an epidemic of insomnia and bad sleep habits that have enormous, negative effects on our lives. Around 37% of our lives are spent sleeping, let’s learn to do it right.

In this talk, Professor Walsh will explain the neuroscience of sleep, why it is even more important than you think it is, how we mess it up, and what we can do about it. He calls it the “low hanging fruit of health and wellbeing.”

In his own research he has worked on sleep and memory, sleep and creativity, sleep and the menopause, sleep and elite athletic performance and sleep and thermoregulation. He is Professor of Human Brain Research at UCL, and Chief Scientific Officer of sleepdeep, an innovative start up in sleepwear technology.

Vincent Walsh is Professor of Human Brain Research at University College London. His primary work has been on methods of using magnetic fields to stimulate the human brain using a technique called TMS, which is now established as a treatment for depression. For the past decade he has focussed on applying his knowledge to the real world and has taken special interests in elite performance (working with football clubs, international rugby and Team GB Rio squads, as well as businesses and the military), creativity (working with concert musicians, artists and business professionals), and sleep (working with sleepdeep, and focussing on sleep and learning, sleep and the menopause, and the role of sleep in learning and creativity).

This Sunday Assembly will be hosted by our co-founder Sanderson Jones.

Sunday Assembly Lates

Wednesday 14th November 2018, 7:30pm
Speakers: Malcolm Stern, Sarah Adefehinti
Performer: Lonan Jenkins

We are so excited to introduce our second ever Sunday Assembly Lates event this November!

This is an adult only, evening gathering, 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!

For this Second Edition of SUNDAY ASSEMBLY LATES we have not one but TWO speakers joining us, each are experts on the subject of love, self love and relationships.

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!

The first speaker is psychotherapist, author and presenter Malcolm Stern. Malcolm has worked as a group and individual psychotherapist for more than 20 years. He is co-founder and co-director of Alternatives at St James’ Church in London and runs groups internationally. He is the author of Falling in Love, Staying In Love and he co-presented the Channel 4 series on relationships Made for Each Other in 2003 and 2004.

The second speaker is self love and relationship coach and founder of Loving with the Lights on, Sarah Adefehinti. Sarah believes self-love is an essential prerequisite for loving others and forming healthy and consciously co-created relationships (romantic or otherwise). Her coaching clinic, Loving with the Lights On, offers holistic relationship education for adults.

To mix things up a little more at this assembly we are also very excited to have the incredible Lonan Jenkins from the Embers Collective doing some storytelling for us!

As always, we’ll have our band welcoming you through the doors, some awesome power ballads and all the best Sunday Assembly joy (but at night!).

> £8 EARLY BIRD TICKETS ON SALE NOW <

We will also have a donation based bar so you can enjoy a drink while you listen/ sing/ dance/ sit.

Come have fun while raising some pennies for this fantastic community!

Over 18’s only.

Speak up on Science

18th November 2018, 11:00am
Speaker: Gemma Milne

This Sunday we are heading deep into the world of science and technology. Have you got opinions on the subject but never felt empowered to voice them? Our speaker this week Gemma Milne is coming to speak on just that. Gemma believes that everyone could and should feel empowered to have a voice and an opinion on the world of tech and science!

Gemma Milne is a science and technology writer and speaker focussing on and the broad cultural issues surrounding their advancements, with a focus on deep tech: biotech, agriculture, energy, space, health, quantum computing, AI. She’s a science startup advisor and Co-Founder of Science: Disrupt, a media org connecting and showcasing those innovators, iconoclasts and entrepreneurs creating change in science.

This Sunday Assembly will be hosted by our co-founder Sanderson Jones.

Helping Refugees

2nd December 2018, 11:00am
Speaker: Hasan Akkad
Poet: Byron Vincent

Incase you’ve forgotten, our Sunday Assembly motto is ‘Live Better, Help Often and Wonder More’

This Sunday we want to really focus our thoughts and focus to ‘Helping More’ – ’tis the giving season after all!

The world is facing a displacement crisis, as a result of violent conflicts and natural disasters. Today, more than 65 million people globally are forcibly displaced, with half of that number being children. We want to learn more about what it’s like to be in that position and wonder, how can we as a community, Help More?

We are SO excited to have the inspiring Hasan Akkad coming to speak with us at this assembly. Hassan Akkad arrived in the UK after 87 days of traveling fleeing his home and job as an English teacher in Damascus, Syria. He will share with us a brief snippet of his story and experience of many refugees fleeing conflict, a story that we hear reports of on the news but that the majority of people have no experience of.

Production company KEO Films provided Hassan and five other refugees with camera phones to record their tumultuous journeys to seek refuge in Europe pieced together in the award winning documentary Exodus: Our Journey to Europe on BBC2.

For both Sunday assemblies in December we are collecting items for SNUG packs for charity, HELP REFUGEES and will be running a food bank for Refugee Community Kitchen:

Bring along warm items to create SNUG packs for Help Refugees (items inc: socks, preferably black/big enough 7-9feet; scarves/snoods; men’s boxer shorts S or M; gloves)

Bring along food items to be donated to Refugee Community Kitchen listed on the document under ‘food’ here: https://helprefugees.org/calais/needs-list/

Want to do more? Help Refugees have a wishlist of priority items here: https://helprefugees.org/calais/needs-list/ and we can happily accept donations of any of these items too.

The Help Often gang will collect at the back of the hall at the end of both December assemblies and will donate in bulk to a driver heading over to Calais close to Christmas.

Thank you in advance for your wonderful generosity. Any Qs or queries get in touch at salondoncommunityaction@gmail.com.

This Sunday Assembly will be hosted by our co-founder Sanderson Jones and we have the amazing poet Bryon Vincent performing for us.

Giving Joy at Christmas

16th December 2018, 11:00am
Speaker: Tamsin Blanchard

It’s our last Sunday Assembly London gathering of 2018 and we’re going out in style!

We are so excited to have Tamsin Blanchard speaking with us this weekend! Tamsin is a fashion journalist, author and lecturer – particularly known for her work on ecological issues in fashion and with her work on the wonderful Fashion Revolution project.

Tamsin will be talking to us about the Fashion Revolution project and how we can all make ethical buying choices this Christmas.

Come and join us for a very jolly time, with some of our favourite festive classics for our singalongs and lots of festive jumpers!

For both Sunday assemblies in December we are collecting items for SNUG packs for charity, HELP REFUGEES and will be running a food bank for Refugee Community Kitchen (for specific items only please see the link below if you want to donate food items).

If you are able to, please bring along one or more of the following for Help Refugees:
– Socks, preferably black/big enough 7-9feet
– Scarves/snoods
– Men’s boxer shorts S or M
– Gloves

Bring along food items to be donated to Refugee Community Kitchen listed on the document under ‘food’ here: https://helprefugees.org/calais/needs-list/

>>> Please read the link and only bring donations of food which are listed! <<<

Want to do more? Help Refugees have a wishlist of priority items here: https://helprefugees.org/calais/needs-list/ and we can happily accept donations of any of these items too.

The Help Often gang will collect at the back of the hall at the end of both December assemblies and will donate in bulk to a driver heading over to Calais close to Christmas.

Thank you in advance for your wonderful generosity. Any Qs or queries get in touch at salondoncommunityaction@gmail.com.

This Sunday Assembly will be hosted by our co-founder Sanderson Jones.

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