Join Danny Wallace and Do Good Deeds

I just finished reading a great book called Join Me, that my mate Simon lent me. It’s the story of a bloke in London who put an ad in the local paper to join him. He did it as a bit of a joke, didn’t really know what people were joining him for, and it ended up being one of the biggest philanthropic organisations in the world. He put in the first advertisement in 2001, and the organization is still running today, with thousands of people as joinees. Basically all you need to do to join is send Danny a passport photo of yourself, and pledge to do a good deed for someone every Friday.

And because it’s a new year, and because doing something nice for someone else always makes me feel good inside, I think it’s a great New Year’s resolution. I had a mild idea a while ago to do something nice for someone every day, and now it seems just an ordinary part of my life. I don’t go looking for people to help either; they just seem to turn up. And they’re mostly not big things either (the deeds that is, not the people). I move aside to give someone a seat on the bus, I give someone directions; I help someone with their bags… Take the pledge now with Danny and become one of the famous `joinees’ or just take the pledge for yourself and resolve to help someone every day, or to do a good deed for someone who needs it every week. By the end of the year you can say that you’ve done at least 50 good deeds for people in 2007, and why the hell wouldn’t you want to do that?

Danny’s Join me website is at www.join-me.co.uk

You can see what else Danny is up to at www.dannywallace.com