THE HAPPY LIST

Happy Lists were born out of a need to provide an antidote to all those rich lists and celebrity lists which worship at the shrine of the wealthy, the bonus-getters, and the tax avoiders. This list honours a different set of values –naming the people who have, without any thought of personal gain or recognition, done so much to make their communities better adjusted places leading to their cities and thus countries becoming a better and happier place.

David Randall at the Independent on Sunday created the first national Happy List in 2008, teaming up with Happy City in 2013 to produce the first local version in Bristol. The Action for Happiness group in Brighton joined our intrepid band in 2015, and both cities aim to repeat their successes with a new list for 2016.

This initiative is far more significant than it at first appears. Here’s how the benefits stack up:

• Nominators feel good about nominating and can take credit for the chain of events which follow
• Nominees get a boost from the appreciation, becoming part of a fellowship where there’s mutual support
• The ideas, activities, people and places which nominees work with get some free PR
• From the unsolicited profile, there often comes an injection of energy as new people begin to engage
• A ripple effect can emerge as people inspired by what they see decide make a difference where they are

So HappyLists aren’t just a one-off ‘nice’ little story.

HappyLists are a power tool, helping change-makers in their work.

We’re currently looking for nominations for Bristol and Brighton’s 2016 lists – click on the link to land on the page with the nomination forms.

We’re also looking for people in other cities who would like to coordinate this fantastically uplifting initiative.  City Lists are limited to 50 people per year, selected from a mix of public nominations, people recognised for public spirited efforts in other lists, and research by the coordinating team.  If you would like to know more, write to mike@happycity.org.uk

Unfortunately, our programmed main speaker, Steve Parker, was not able to attend our assembly on Sunday, but another Mr Parker, Michael, stood in at the last minute: we’re extremely grateful to him for stepping in!

First-time host, Gareth was our front-man for this month’s assembly on the theme of ‘Journeys’.  While the runners of the Brighton Half Marathon pounded the pavements outside, our fabulous house-band and choir set the pace with our first journey-themed song, the Proclaimers’ 500 Miles.

Rosa, Sunday Assembly Brighton regular contributor, read a beautiful poem written especially for the service.  She described the journey she had been on by writing a poem, and then scrapping it, conscious of the wide remit of the theme, pushing herself to explore an unfamiliar style.  She observed that journeys prompt us to push our boundaries wide, to explore new places and ideas, but they often return us home to a place of familiarity and comfort.  She told of her personal journey through life, reliving a particular memory of visiting Carsten Holler’s giant slides in the Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern, that created a playground for her and her partner to enjoy, and reflected on her happiness in choosing to share her journey with a man who makes her laugh.

As our main speaker, Michael Parker talked about his personal journey, that led him to join Band of Brothers, a charitable group who act as role models and provide mentorship for young men experiencing difficult life situations. He described how the group are able to explore and recount their own journeys, allowing them to recognise and overcome the obstacles that can act as deterrents in achieving personal goals.

The second song was REM’s ‘Man on the Moon’….but a bit quicker!  This led us neatly onto a talk by our favourite moustached science enthusiast, Russell Arnott, who spoke about the ‘Best Journey Ever!’, and the requirements of travelling to the moon.  He cleared up any confusion over the first men on the moon (‘Neil‘ Armstrong, not ‘Lance’, and Buzz ‘Aldrin‘, as opposed to ‘Lightyear’). and shared with us some interesting facts about journeying to the moon: the escape velocity to leave planet earth requires a speed of 40,270 km/h; radiation exposure is arguably the most dangerous aspect of living in space; and the Saturn V rocket has perhaps the worst fuel consumption ever: a shocking 18cm to the gallon!

We finished with our final song, Don’t Stop Believing by Journey (you see what we did there?!).

Join us next time for Sunday Assembly Brighton on Sunday 27th March at 11am at [map id=”1″]St Andrew’s, Waterloo Street, Hove[/map] .  If you would like to help us set up on the day, or plan the events in advance, or if you have any feedback for us, then please contact us at sundayassemblybrighton@gmail.com.

For upcoming events & details of the next planning meeting, please refer to our Facebook page: facebook.com/sundayassemblybrighton

Or do you fancy writing this blog as a guest blogger?  Drop us an email to the address above.

Safe travels everybody!

Jo xx

Our December service had a festive flavour as we learnt about ‘Feasts’.

Incredible local freestyle lyricist, ‘Gramski’, got the service off to an up-tempo start with his improvised poem about a feast involving the audience-suggested Gandhi and Marilyn Monroe, on the West Pier discussing Star Wars: pretty impressive stuff (perhaps you had to be there!).

Louise Peskett, guide and teacher at the Royal Pavilion, introduced us to the nineteenth century ‘celebrity chef’, Antoine Careme.  She explained that Careme was responsible for creating the vol-au-vent and creme caramel, and was quite possibly the first person to introduce soup as a starter.  Antoine Careme was abandoned by his parents at a young age and worked his way up ‘from the gutter’, making his mark on the culinary world, and leaving a legacy of over two thousand recipes.  What a great role model: he found something he was good at and stuck to it.

Louise told us of the history of the mince pie, explaining that the recipe for minced-meat pies, spiced with cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg, was brought back to the UK by European crusaders from the Middle East. She dispelled the myth that it is illegal to eat mince pies on Christmas Day, the ruling being a remnant of the English civil war when mince pies were considered symbols of Catholic idolatry by the puritan authorities.

Russell ‘the science guy’ Arnott then delighted (or disgusted?) us with a practical demonstration of the digestive process of your festive fayre, involving an inner tube, some mashed cereal and a pair of tights.

Our four (yes, FOUR!) songs for the season of festive feasts were ‘Food, Glorious Food’ (of course!), ‘Winter Wonderland’, and ‘Let it Snow’, but we added a drop of cheerful optimism with ‘Walking on Sunshine’.

We also had many generous donations for our food drive for the Brighton Food Bank. Thank you to all those who contributed.

We look forward to seeing you on 24th January.

Happy new year everyone!

Jo x

Sunday 22^nd November: Differences

We had two different hosts for November’s assembly, Rob and Mikey, who led us through an inspiring itinerary on the theme of ‘Differences’.

To start things off, Louise Taylor read her poem, ‘The Lightbulb’, which she described as ‘a poem about a journey to make a difference’.  In the poem, when insecurity surfaced, her confidence was bolstered by ‘Nick’ who spiritedly advised ‘when the light goes on, start dancing’ and declared that ‘we are the creators of all that we see’.  My favourite was the heart-warming line, ‘I’ve learnt much from my mistakes; so I think I’ll make some more’. Great advice!  (Louise’s book, ‘You can’t cook a poem like an egg’ is available here).

For our Science Slot, Richard Robinson gave us a fascinating insight into the behaviour of bees…as well as that of human beings.  He opined that ‘we are individuals, we are ourselves, we are different, but we like to gather as a crowd and share things together: sadness; joy; wonder‘.  He made the comparison that bees, like us, are individuals but like to group together in order to share information and experiences: it’s just a matter of balancing the two!  He stressed the importance of different voices and opinions in discussions, and heralded the benefits of parliamentary democracy.  He concluded:  ‘Vive la difference: difference gives you traction, but it is more than that….La Vie is only possible if there is la difference’.

Our main speaker was Ali Lapper, MBE, a disabled British artist who was famously featured on Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth from 2005-2007 as the subject of the sculpture ‘Alison Lapper Pregnant’.   Born without arms and with shortened legs and institutionalised from birth, Ali spoke of the term used to describe her at a young age, ‘a strange little creature’.  In her childhood, Ali was not initially aware of her differences as she grew up amongst 250 children like her.  As she got older, she strived to look like everybody else in the broader population, and was fitted with prosthetic limbs, though these were so artificial that she related more to the Daleks on TV than to the people around her.  She felt different, ugly, and people surmised that because of her disability she would not be able to have children.  When she learnt to drive, she felt as though she’d been given wings and her independence allowed her confidence to grow.  She moved to London and, determined to avoid returning to care, she embarked on the pursuit of a ‘normal’ life.  But she still felt different.  During her fine art degree, she began to question (as so many of us do at some point in our life) ‘what do I look like?  How do I feel about myself?  How do I feel about the way I look?’.  She became aware that as a human being, she experiences compassion, love, anger, frustration and empathy just as everyone else does, and learnt to accept herself as she is, no longer striving to fit an image influenced by the perceptions of other people.  Gradually, though, she began to realise that perhaps she wasn’t so different to everybody else…..and was disappointed!  She realised that she’d liked being different!  She has subsequently spent her life embracing being different.  She enjoys being who she is.  She advocates: ‘embrace the difference and be proud of it!’

Our final reading was an interpretation of our anecdotal ‘This Much I Know’ slot, and one of our regular congregants, Sam, read an incredibly personal poem, titled ‘Different’, which summed up the theme beautifully.

As always, we were accompanied by our wonderful choir and band, with guitarists Paul and Chris choosing to interpret the theme by playing their unconventional ‘Flying-V’ guitars.

Do come and join us for our next assembly on the THIRD Sunday in December (20^th) when we will explore the tradition of ‘Feasts’.  We will also be having a food collection for the Brighton Food Bank so please bring along un-opened, in-date non-perishables.

And if you would like to join us for our festive social, come along to the function room at the Northern Lights on Saturday 12^th December from 7pm (see our events page or Facebook for details).

Look forward to seeing you in December!

Jo x

‘Boring’ was a surprisingly interesting theme for this month’s service.  ‘Parklife’ was a lively opening song, the narrative being wonderfully delivered by Rob, our host for the day, supported by our choir and the Sunday Assembly Brighton house band.

Sunday Assembly Brighton first-timer Michael Parker read his uplifting poem and proposed that ‘being bored isn’t boring’ and revealed that he loves to get bored and wait for inspiration to find him.  He amused us with his observations and his repeated Iggy Pop-esque proclamation, ‘I’m the chairman of the bored!!’, an expression that amused us all.

Our main talk was by James Ward who, inspired by a print by Andy Warhol ‘I like boring things’, started a blog of the same name. Disappointed by the cancellation of the 2010 ‘Interesting Conference’, James launched the ‘Boring Conference‘ which was billed as “a one-day celebration of the mundane, the ordinary, the obvious and the overlooked” and proved astonishingly popular, with tickets selling out.  Topics such as car park roofs and milk matching to cereals were covered, and there was a presentation of a sneeze journal by a man who recorded a snapshot of his life by noting down the force of every sneeze he suffered, as well as what he was looking at at the time.  James surmised that even the most mundane things become interesting when a person has taken the time to observe and present them.  The process of giving something time, attention and focus can be inspiring, no matter what the subject: they can turn a sneeze into a diary, or a packet of Munchies into a museum.

Our second song was ‘The Importance of being Idle’ by Oasis swiftly followed by Russell ‘the science guy’ Arnott who presented some interesting facts about the other sort of ‘boring’ in his potted history of drilling. We learnt that the deepest hole ever bored is the Kola Superdeep Borehole, reaching 12,261 km, barely scratching the surface of the earth’s 6500 km radius.

After a moment of reflection and this month’s notices, the choir and band led us through the third and final song, ‘Lazy Sunday’.

Who knew boring could be so uplifting?

We look forward to our next assembly on Sunday 22nd November when our main speaker will be the inspirational Ali Lapper, who will be giving her perspective on how we can celebrate our ‘Differences’.

Look forward to seeing you there.

Jo x

This year’s AGM will be after the September service (27th September) in the Cellar Bar at The Brunswick pub, Holland Road, Hove from 1.30pm.  We will be reviewing the events of the past 12 months, presenting our financial report and electing the committee for the forthcoming year.  Everyone is welcome to come along and help shape the future of Sunday Assembly Brighton.

We’ll also be celebrating our 2nd birthday which can mean only one thing……there’s going to be cake!!!!

You can read our 2014-2015 Annual Report here:

Sunday Assembly Brighton 2014-2015 AnnualReport.

The theme of this month’s service was Express Yourself and we kicked things off with a rendition of Madonna’s song of the same name.  Gareth read from ‘Letters of Note’ an entry by Robert Pirosh who expressed his love of words in his cheeky pursuit of a job as a screenwriter.  Pirosh’s creative approach apparently worked and his career change eventually resulted in an Academy Award: who knows what opportunities can arise from expressing yourself? Our main speaker was the inspiring Jo Hunter, co-founder of 64 Million Artists.  After quitting her job and wondering what to do, Jo asked her friends to set her some creative challenges to push her outside of her comfort zone.  She was challenged to’ grow something’, ‘write a poem to a stranger and leave it somewhere to be found’, to ‘cook a meal she hadn’t made before’, and to have ‘one person half her age and another person twice her age to teach her their favourite dance’.  Not only did these challenges teach her new things, they also introduced her to new people and helped her to express who she is.  Through 64 Million Artists, Jo invites everyone in Britain to ‘do something new and celebrate their creativity, to be proud of their passion, and show their flair’.  Jo believes that ‘art is not just for people who are good at it’ and offers ways in which we can unlock our potential through creativity by doing 3 things:

• Do stuff – actually do it: don’t just talk about doing it
• Think about it – reflect on the experience transforming it into being a cognitive action
• Share it with other people

Jo’s talk mirrors the benefits that I have felt since being involved with Sunday Assembly Brighton.  Through doing many things outside of my comfort zone, by reflecting on my actions and by sharing the experience with other people my life has been enriched and I recognise the value in her campaign. We followed Jo’s talk with our version of Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I am what I am’ which our everyone sang with gusto. Richard Robinson, director of Brighton Science Festival  was our ‘science guy’ for today’s event, and stressed the importance of us expressing ourselves to help shape the world.

Our ‘This Much I Know’ slot was filled by Jeff – a fellow Sunday Assembly organiser from Los Angeles. His passion for Sunday Assembly prompted him to get a tattoo of the Sunday Assembly logo.

We had a moment of reflection, some choosing to spend the silence giving a thought to those affected by the devastating plane crash in nearby Shoreham yesterday.

Our notices this month include:

• Planning meeting: Tuesday 1st September, Battle of Trafalgar 7pm. Everyone is welcome to come and share ideas, offer their time, or just to find out what is needed to put on our monthly events.
• Choir for all abilities: Tues 8th Sept and Tues 22nd Sept 7pm at the Brighthelm Centre, North Road (email us for more details)
• Top of the Crops sing-a-long: Thursday 10th September 7pm, Union Chapel, Islington (see Sunday Assembly website for details. Tickets £12/£9)
• Third Thursday: Thursday 17th Sept Battle of Trafalgar 7pm
• Next service: Sunday 27th September 11am – ‘Respect’
• AGM: Sunday 27th September after the service (email us if you wish to register your interest in standing for election to the committee by 20th September)

We wrapped up with a rousing rendition of We Are the Champions, accompanied by Chris and Paul on guitars.

If you would like to express yourself and tap into your inner creativity, what better way than to get involved with Sunday Assembly Brighton? If you would like to read a poem, offer a talk for the This Much I Know slot or if you would like to sing in the choir or join the band then please get in touch: I can thoroughly recommend it!

See you In September!

Jo x

It was this time last year that Sunday Assembly Brighton took itself outdoors and held the July service on Hove lawns.  This year, we brought the outdoors inside, which was just as well as the heavy rain would otherwise have made for some soggy cake!

Anita and Izi were our hosts for the day and kicked off proceedings by leading us into singing one of Sunday Assembly Brighton’s favourite songs, ‘Born to be wild’.  Our reading was a poem called Dragonfly Dance written and read beautifully by our avid supporter, Meg.  It was a wonderful poem, inspired by a time that Meg had spent with her mother in the countryside of Cannock Chase.  The imagery Meg created captivated everybody in silence and wonder.  Even the young ‘heckler’ who joined in with the excited exclamation of ‘a dragonfly!’ seemed only to add to the magical feel of the reading.  Many thanks to Meg for sharing it with us.

We were delighted to have Dr Tony Whitbread, Cheif Executive of the Sussex Wildlife Trust as our main speaker.  His talk was titled ‘what have flowers ever done for us?’, and as he demonstrated, the answer is ‘quite a lot’: we simply wouldn’t be here without them.  Besides which, they look nice and can make us feel happy.

Timeline of the creation of the universe, life and everything

For more information about the Sussex Wildlife Trust, how you can support them and how you can learn more about our beautiful Sussex countryside you can visit their website https://sussexwildlifetrust.org.uk.

Also let us know if you would like Sunday Assembly Brighton to set up a one-day volunteer project with them – they could always do with some hard-working volunteers!

Our second song, musically accompanied by our amazing guitar duo, Chris and Paul was ‘Wild Thing’.  As a special treat, I dusted off my recorder (which has not seen the light of day since primary school!) and I filled in for the ocarina solo, much to the delight (at least I think it was delight?!) of the congregation.  Thanks for cheering me on, everyone!!

Our ‘This Much I Know’ slot was filled by an inspiring tale by Russell Clark.  Russell had felt disconnected from his fellow passengers on his daily commute between Redhill and Brighton, and recognising that people seem more sociable when they are in the countryside, he decided to bring the countryside inside the train by handing out flowers.  You can read about his project to promote social interaction here: https://www.facebook.com/flowersonatrain.

We concluded things with a slightly slowed-down groovy version of ‘I wanna be like you’, accompanied by our fab choir.  We have started to hold regular choir sessions, lead by Rob and Phily, for anyone who wants to sing for fun.  There is no obligation to stand at the front on service days if you don’t like the limelight – the choir sessions are for anyone, whatever your ability.  If you would like more details and dates of when and where the sessions are being held then please email us at sundayassemblybrighton@gmail.com.

Thanks to everyone for making it such a great service: to the tea crew, to the washer-uppers, to the meeters and greeters, to you for your generous monetary donations (which go towards the running costs, equipment hire and speaker expenses), for the food donations (which go to the Hangelton Food Bank), and for the cake bakers (thank you Amy C for the timely supply of the Banoffee Pie, following the recent death of its creator, Nigel Mackenzie).

Sunday Assembly Brighton is run entirely by volunteers, some of whom will be standing down from the committee at the AGM in September.  To ensure the continued success of Sunday Assembly Brighton we would really appreciate some more voluntary support, either in a formal capacity as a committee member, or as a dedicated part of the planning team.  Perhaps you only have time to send one email a month, or perhaps you’d like to be responsible for building a whole new website?  Or maybe you’ve got good communication skills and are good at motivating people to help?  Or perhaps you live round the corner from the venue and can pick up the keys and open up the venue every month?  There are lots of ways that you can help out, depending on your availability and amount of time to spare.  At the moment, there are a lot of jobs being done by a few people but we need to spread the load to make things sustainable.  If you would like to know more, or can offer to help on a regular basis, or if you would like to stand for election to the Sunday Assembly Brighton committee then email us at sundayassemblybrighton@gmail.com

We look forward to seeing you at the next service at 11am on Sunday 23rd August.

With love,

Jo xxxx