This week we spoke with Stephen Reid of Dandelion Collective, a not-for-profit worker co-operative that launched a web platform for ticketed events and co-created gatherings. Dandelion Collective is also a new member of the Panvala League community!
The Origin of Dandelion Collective
Stephen Reid studied physics and complexity science at university. He was always interested in the nature of reality, and several years ago he discovered that psychedelics were both a powerful tool for inquiry and had a diverse range of healing qualities. He challenged the “taboo” nature of psychedelics and started the Psychedelic Society, campaigning for legal regulation of psychedelic substances in the UK. Because this topic was not often spoken about publicly, the group began organizing meetups to give people the space to speak openly about their experiences with psychedelics. As community formed around this topic, Psychedelic Society started hosting events, dances, talks, and meditations. Two years ago, they renamed their community to, “Dandelion Collective,” and this group is now a registered not-for-profit worker co-operative based in the UK.
Dandelion.Earth
Out of Dandelion Collective emerged dandelion.earth, a web platform for ticketed events and co-created gatherings. “Right now we are running 30-40 events a month; they are all online at the moment, but before the pandemic we had a physical space in London,” Stephen told us. Having worked previously as a web developer, Stephen developed the platform to facilitate event sharing, allowing any organization to use it to host their events. Similar to Facebook, different organizations have pages where they can list event offerings. The platform itself operates as a gift economy; there is a $15 USD suggested donation per event for event organisers to use the platform, and they can set their own ticket prices for participants. With a mixed audience of crypto and non-crypto users, you can pay in fiat or cryptocurrency—they even accept custom tokens on the xDAI chain. Yes, this means you can pay for events with PAN!
Attend or Host an Event
Dandelion.earth hosts a variety of unique events, and we highly encourage you to go check it out. Additionally, if you want to list one of your events on their platform, you can visit their website, sign up, and go to the “organizations” menu to create a page for your events. “It would be really rad to have other Panvala organizations hosting their events there,” Stephen said, excited. He also let us know that if you have any questions or want to connect further, you can utilize the interom widget at the bottom of the webpage.
Thank you Stephen for the interview, and welcome Dandelion Collective to the Panvala League!