Danny Wallace used to work for the BBC where he served as producer on many interesting and amusing radio and television shows. Although he left the BBC a few years ago he still does occasional freelance work, and writes the odd magazine article or two. But what Danny does most of all these days is be The Leader.

For he is The Leader of the Join Me Collective, or, as it is also known, The Karma Army.

Join Him

It started when Danny's great-uncle Gallus died. After the funeral, Danny discovered Gallus had a dream - one that had died many years before, but a dream nonetheless. He wanted to create a commune of one hundred like-minded people. He bought a farm, and tried to persuade others from the Swiss village in which he lived to join him. Only three did. Eventually he accepted defeat and sold the farm.

Danny thought it would be a fitting tribute to Gallus to try to create a community like the one he had dreamed about. Such are the practicalities of the modern world that living together wouldn't be possible, but perhaps he could persuade them to join him in a more cerebral way. A community of the mind rather than of the body.

He started by taking out an advert in a local newspaper. The wording was very simple:

Join Me.

Send a passport photo to...

Join Us

Danny took out further adverts in local newspapers all over the country, and set up a PO box for the passport photos to be delivered to, so that he could remain anonymous. He then realised that best way to create a community of the mind would be via the Internet, and so he set up a website.

He quickly reached his target of one hundred 'Joinees' and had one passport photo of each person. Then a friend argued that one hundred isn't that big a number, really. Now, one thousand would be quite impressive. That would be a great tribute to Gallus. Though it seemed like an unfeasible and completely bizarre aim, Danny was inspired. One thousand 'Joinees' became his goal.

It was a goal that took him around Europe. He sought 'Joinees' in France, Belgium and Norway, to name but three European countries. However, achieving his aim was not without its problems. That's because all these people wanted to know what they had Joined - and now that they had Joined, what exactly they were supposed to do.

The trouble is, Danny didn't know either.

Join The Karma Army

Then he hit upon another idea. The reason he was trying to create this community was to make an old man happy, not that he would ever know it. And so the purpose of this community was to make old men happy. The Leader issued his first edict to his people, that they should go forth and make old men happy, and thereby bring more joy into the world. They did, and one group of 'Joinees' met Raymond Price. He was an old man who came from Teignmouth in Devon, but was stuck in London with no way of getting home. So the 'Joinees' clubbed together and gave him £38 for a train ticket, and made him happy.

Spurred on by this success, Danny decided to transform his 'Joinees' in The Karma Army, a group of people who would go about doing good deeds¹. He commanded that all 'Joinees' should do a good dead to a random stranger each Friday, naming this concept Good Fridays. Again, the 'Joinees' obeyed their Leader. Much joy and general happiness was being spread across the country, and then Danny discovered that Raymond Price is a conman, and a convicted criminal.

Don't Join Me

This upset Danny a lot. It was the example of Raymond Price that lead him to formulate The Karma Army, and so finding out that Mr Price had conned the 'Joinees' out of £38 just brought the whole thing crashing down. It was predicated on a lie. Danny lost faith in The Karma Army. Raymond Price had tainted the idea, which was meant to be pure and true and clean, with his base deceit and theft.

He took a couple of weeks off from being The Leader, and went on holiday to Crete. While there he was reinvigorated, and upon his return he announced his new idea. He realised, from reading newspaper reports of Raymond Price's convictions, that he only made a minimal amount of money from his deceptions - an average of £79 pounds a year, Danny reckoned. This is clearly not enough to live on, and so it stands to reason that Raymond Price doesn't really need to be a criminal. So if Danny can just give him £79 each year, then there will be no need for Mr Price to take that money from others, and therefore make him happy, and make happy the people he would otherwise have conned. And so Danny created The Raymond Price Fund For Keeping Raymond Price Out Of Trouble.

Join Thousands

Eventually, after several other scrapes and problems, and breaking up with his girlfriend, Danny reached his goal of one thousand 'Joinees.' He wrote about these things in more detail in his book, Join Me. It would not have been unreasonable for him to stop there. The problem is, he now had at his command a whole Army of people who regularly did good deeds to random strangers. Surely it would be wrong to just tell them to stop?

He didn't tell them to stop doing good deeds, nor did he tell them to stop spreading the word of Join Me. At the last count, the Join Me Collective stood at around four thousand 'Joinees.' But only Danny knows the real number. He has all the passport photos, after all.

Further Reading

This is not the first mad scheme Danny has been involved in. He's the friend and ex-flatmate of Dave Gorman, and co-wrote the Are you Dave Gorman? book with him.

See what else Danny has done on his website.

Visit the Join Me website for the latest news, local collectives, the search for Raymond Price, or, most importantly, how to Join.