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UNITED KINGDOM, March 26, 2004: There are no dues or initiation rituals. Your age, citizenship, political affiliation, gender, religion (or lack of it) don’t matter. The invitation comes from Danny Wallace of London. He is the director of a new comedy development for the BBC, and has written a book about how two words, ingenuity, a sense of humor and faith in the goodness of people can, have and will make a difference globally. “Join Me!” is Wallace’s tale about the trust and skepticism inherent to human nature, the desire to do good works and the need to be part of something bigger than yourself. It is a mission that also is slightly irreverent and full of dry wit and quirkiness. “I’m not really a religious or political person, and there are many people like me,” the 27-year-old said on a recent book tour in the U.S. “We’ve never had a community.” Now he has created one, and it does good works–for strangers, at random and particularly on Fridays. The number of joinees (the author’s term) has surpassed 6,000 worldwide since Wallace placed a simple ad in a London newspaper a couple of years ago. “Join Me!” is the story of where and how he amassed the first 1,000 members. He eventually placed ads on the Internet and as enthusiasm spread, Join Me got its own Web site. Wallace realized that the pressure was on to explain why the group existed. So he thought about it and advised his cohorts to do at least one good deed every Friday, then report back to him. Good Friday tales, elaborate to simple, are online. It all has fueled this machine, nicknamed the Karma Army, to do more of the same. “The story never ends,” Wallace said. He has added another initiative: Happy Mondays, in which joinees do something good for themselves. None of it is mandatory, and no one keeps track, Wallace said. “Whatever their leanings, it seems to attract people with a sense of humor and a kind heart,” he observed.

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