"Something Extraordinary is Happening..." - BBC's Edward Adoo on The StoriBoard Club Experience

Our incredible founder, Karen Harris, recently joined the fantastic Edward Adoo on BBC Radio London to chat all things StoriBoard Club! During their conversation, they touched on the challenges of expanding your social circle as an adult and explored the science behind why we’re better together. Karen shared StoriBoard's impact in turning strangers into friends, with Adoo highlighting that although London may be anti-social on a surface level, the city needs connection now more than ever!

Tune into the audio recording here:

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Full Transcript available here:

Edward: Got a brilliant show for you. Gonna be talking about, well, I would call it dinner with strangers. It's a brilliant thing called StoriBoard. I'm gonna be speaking to the founder, Karen Harris. I tell you what, living in London is tricky, when we try and connect with new people. I was just saying to producer, George, when I've been invited to an event. and I walk into a room and I don't know anybody, the first thing I do, and I suppose you probably say, Ed, you seem like a very outgoing person and I'm going to be honest with you, it's the fear of the unknown, of not knowing how to interact with people, so I'll get my mobile phone out and I'll just start scrolling and just mucking around with my phone -suppose it's the only way to just kill time.

Edward: Let me introduce you to my first guest. This is a brilliant, brilliant story. From 7 P.M in restaurants across London, there's something extraordinary happening. Now imagine this: a dinner table, but instead of familiar faces, you're surrounded by strangers. Yes, strangers. No scripts, no small talk, just raw, real conversations. Karen Harris, the mastermind behind StoriBoard, is setting the scene for a different kind of dinner party. Now, every Tuesday, all around the city, people are coming together, each one hungry for something more than just food. They're looking for connections that go beyond the screen. Real moments that spark friendships and open new experiences. From intimate dinners to a night of darts or karaoke, Karen's vision is simple: break the digital barrier and bring people back to the table where real connections can happen. She's sat opposite me and she's going to tell us about how people connect one dinner at a time. Karen it's fascinating, and I had to give a whole overview of what it's all about. Welcome to BBC Radio London, by the way.

Karen: Thank you for having me.

Edward: I know this is going to be a great conversation, because you've got one of those faces where I know you have a great conversation.

Karen: Oh, well, that's very lovely of you to say that. Thank you so much. But we're all about real world. So that's why I'm here.

Edward: What prompted you to create this concept?

Karen: So what we do is we build adult friendships and we do it through small group shared experiences in the real world. And the way it started was actually a couple of years ago, we built a community. We built an app because we wanted to make it easy for people to find others going through the same life experience, whatever that was. So it could be that you were lonely, or it could be that maybe you had breast cancer and you wanted to speak to another woman who'd been through it. Whatever it was, we really believed in that human connection. And over those couple of years, what we noticed was a real trend. And this trend was people saying, "Hey, I live in Bristol. Does anyone want to meet for coffee?" When we first saw it, we were like, okay, that's weird. Like, who wants to meet a stranger? And then we...

Edward: Why did you think it was weird?

Karen: Because, you know, as a woman, immediately, I'm thinking, is that even safe? You know, I was brought up in the world of stranger danger and so, you know, it was all kind of like, wow, what is this? And then we saw more and more of it. And we were like, okay, there's something really important here. And our community was up to 30, 000 online, and we said, Okay, we're going to experiment. It's September, last year, we actually experimented with students as you do start with them.

Edward: Students always rule.

Karen: Exactly. What if anyone's gonna go for something novel? It's them. So we started doing some fresher fairs, and it went down really well. Then we said, okay, what about non students? And literally, I mean, hilarious, because the way we did it on our first, on our first dinner, I walked around in Islington, I went to Gail's Cafe because I thought I'm going to match people visually, I'm going to take a particular type of venue, I'm going to look for people sitting on their own, on their laptop working.

Edward: Or scrolling on their mobile phones.

Karen: Literally! Visualizing an age range, and I just went up to them and said, do you want to come for dinner? That was it. We put a table together. It was the most and none of us went. We just left them to it. And it was like rave reviews. Then we were like, okay, we've got something here and then from there, it has exploded. We're now in six cities; it's every Tuesday night at 7pm and the sweet spot is 6 people. The evidence shows that when it's a small group like that, you can really form lasting bonds and lasting friendships.

Karen: If you go to a networking event and there's like 50, 100 people, it's great, it's wonderful. You can maybe like meet with a few people.

Edward: Sometimes it's a bit boring. I'm gonna be honest with you. I'm just gonna keep it real. Tell it how it is you're walking around. So you probably have about three or four good, friendly people there, and the rest just want to go home. They just want to get the last train. That's what they want to do.

Karen: Well, you're so right and this is what I was going to say! Even though there's all those people there, you don't meet anybody because you can't connect. So yeah, where we are now is it's not just dinners. We also have a partnership with Flight Club, which is one of the most incredible nights out that you can possibly have, I don't know, have you ever been? It's social darts. Oh my gosh. It's incredible. They're incredible. And that's Monday night, every Monday night at seven o'clock. And we've got a few more things coming down the line. We've got karaoke coming down the line. We have got electric shuffle, bowling, a cinema chain, etc. So every night of the week with StoriBoard Club, you'll be able to meet people and have a shared experience together.

Edward: From what you're saying, it seems as if you're looking to have a theme for each day to keep everyone busy.

Karen: Absolutely, and, you know, when we look at, and now we've had thousands of people already in such a short time from last year. When we look at who's actually attending, I think at the beginning we thought a third of the world is lonely so we thought it's going to be lonely people, but actually, it really isn't that. What we've got is people who are new to the city, people who want to date, but are really, really sick of dating apps and everything that that brings. So this feels gentler, softer, meeting in a group of people, especially for women, getting to know them first. We've got people who do want to expand their social circle and we've got people who want to network. So all those personas are the people who are coming and then now that we're adding other experiences, we've got people who just want to go and try new things.

Edward: That's brilliant.

Karen: And like their mates are busy.

Edward: Yeah, and that's it, I mean, I'm I'm of a certain age, I'm trying to style it out now, mid forties.

Karen: You don't look it!,

Edward: Thank you. Thank you. When you go, when I'm going through my phone and the majority of my friends are married, they got kids or some live abroad. I'm going to be honest, I do have those moments where I end up staying at home thinking, gosh, this is a lonely night. What am I going to do? But being in London, as you say, I think it's very hard, it's certainly tough for a lot of people to admit or to say, You know what? I'm having a lonely, but I want to reach out and meet new people, but being in London, I think it's the perception, if you try and do that, some people might think you're strange. That's the issue.

Karen: And you know, you've, you've hit on something there that's at the core of everything, which is there is a difference between loneliness and solitude and actually I would say that I, I think solitude is probably the biggest social fact that is affecting the 21st century. And what I mean by that is people are actually choosing now to be at home. I think the reason why they're doing that is because we've made our lives remote. So you've heard of remote working, but actually we've got a remote life because everything.

Edward: Is that thanks to COVID?

Karen: It's definitely exacerbated by COVID, but I think it was even before. What I think it's down to is tech. And listen, I'm a technologist, I love AI. We use it in the business to do the matching. I love it. But at the same time, I recognise where it's counterintuitive.

Edward: You think it's our biggest enemy as well.

Karen: Do you know what? In the 1930s, the typical American went to the movies, as they call it, a minimum.

Edward: I thought you were going to sing there! Karen: You don't want to hear it. Karaoke, I'm going to get you to karaoke. So yeah, they, they would go a minimum of like four or five times a month. that's what they would do in the 1930s. Now, the average person is three times a year. And do you know how many movies or how many films we watch at home? We watch the equivalent of 19 hours, it's the equivalent of eight movies a week.

Edward: Is that because some people might say, look, I can't afford to go to the cinema because going to the cinema. I'm gonna be honest with you. When I go to the cinema, this is wrong, I shouldn't be saying this, I don't remember the last time I bought popcorn from the cinema. You'd call me a popcorn smuggler. I'd take my popcorn from a different place and I'd bring it in and I'm sorry, it's much cheaper. If you're in a car at home, please don't do that. Don't blame me. But I've done that for years. We've heard in the news recently, I don't want to get political, start talking about what we've heard about welfare cuts, but it's a difficult time for people and I think sometimes that's why some people make those decisions of look instead of going out four times a month, I'm going to go out once a month. And they try and capitalize and have the best experience. But clearly what you've done is that you've broken the mould and you've said to those people, you've got to enjoy life; whether you've got your last 20 in your pocket, you've got to go out, if you want to meet new people, if you want to date, if you want to play darts, whatever, enjoy your life, make it happen.

Karen: 100%. And you know, are right, but at the same time, do you know how much we're spending on streaming in our homes, on Deliveroo to our homes, Uber Eats, like we now deliver everything to our homes. And we're homebound, right? And, that's great, but we're also social animals and we need each other. You know, there was an experiment that was done on the tube and it was the most brilliant experiment. So they took half the people and they said, you do your normal thing on the tube, which obviously is headphones in watching, you know, earplugs, watching

Edward: Either that, or looking at the Northern line diagram, for the 70 thousandth time. Yeah, exactly. Scrolling your phone. I do that all the time, just to style it out. Because the thing is, you don't look at someone, the next thing they're going to make a phone call and say, that guy's looking at me.

Karen: You're scrolling, you're listening to something, whatever you're doing. And the other half, they said, you've got to speak to somebody for the entire journey. So they were all moaning and they measured the happiness scores. Pre and post. And post, the people who were forced to speak to another human were so significantly happier because we need each other. And you know what? We might have social anxiety now. We might be choosing isolation. But please, the mission is get out there, meet new people and it will change your life.

Edward: I'm going to sign up because I'm going to be honest with you. I'm on a couple of those dating apps and some friends of mine have said to me, you are going on 46, why are you single? What's going on? You work in places where you should meet people. And I'm thinking, well, I just don't meet people. I don't know why. I'm gonna be honest with you on online dating apps, it feels as if it's like a, a new form of being a pen pal, I don't think people actually want to meet, they just want to have a conversation online, which is just weird, you know, it's like, you know, a Dear Sally letter, kind of concept that is like, no, it'd be nice to have a conversation and meet. And with online, you've got, and I'm not discrediting any online dating apps, but I've heard horror stories from friends who have said they've met somebody and in actual fact, they've got into a relationship and then suddenly they've, found out that that person's married. It's like story like from EastEnders or Dallas of Dynasty for back in the day.

Karen: You know, with AI, I always say that I don't think anyone's going to believe anything online within three years. They're not going to believe a video, a face, a voice because everything can be AI. So you know what? We're heading here anyway. Yeah, we're heading here we do all our customer service on WhatsApp and we want to be so close to our customers and honestly we have the same percentage every week who literally the day before come and say " hey, I've got flu" or "hey, something has come up at work".

Edward: And I just love that everybody says, Hey, it's great.

Karen: Exactly, on their WhatsApp. And you know what we do? We say, no problem. Happy to reschedule you but you know, everybody you're meeting has taken the personality quiz. Just like you. They don't know anybody. They're all pushing out of their comfort zone and they really want to meet you. You know what the response is? All right, I'll come back.

Edward: So they're styling it out. They're saying, "Oh, yeah, I've got somehow got this flu, which managed to pick up like 20 minutes ago. So I don't want to go." And then you somehow managed to convince them.

Karen: It's scary. It's scary for everybody. But that's the thing, just pushing yourself a little bit out of your comfort zone is where the growth comes in us as human beings. And I'm gonna say it again: Our mission is to get all of us into the real world to connect with each other because we can change our lives by doing that.

Edward: What would you say to someone listening to us now who wants to get out there would love to come in and be part of your fantastic concept be part of that world. But they do the normal nine to five or whatever they do, but, they just can't step out of the zone to interact with someone because they feel threatened by doing that. What would your advice be to someone?

Karen: Do you know what I say to people? I say, there's one thing that's certain and that is if you don't go, you won't meet anyone.

Edward: As simple as that. Let's tell it how it is.

Karen: Simple as that. And we need each other. We're better together and you will love it. Just get over your fear. Everyone's in the same boat.

Edward: I'm going to try it. I'm going to reach out to you. I'm going to try it.

Karen: Come to a Monday night flight club. You'll love it.

Edward: Report back and say, listen, this is, this is how it works. So the plan: you're, you're teaming up with different venues.

Karen: Sure. For us, what's great in the partnership is we solve for a lot of their challenges. So we solve for off peak for restaurants and for some of the venues where they're quieter so we can come in. And you can't do karaoke on your own. You can't! You can't even go with a friend.

Edward: Well, no, I mean, listen, it depends on the track. I had an awful karaoke story with two of my best friends. We ended up in Morden we ended up at this bar. It resembled being in the Wild West. No disrespect to Morden- it's a lovely place. But this particular bar, it reminded me of being a character in a cowboy movie. We walked in and there's this guy could show exact, you know, who wants to take part? I put my hand up and somehow decided to sing George Michael's "Jesus to a child" with my two best friends. The reaction after, the guy said, "don't come back to this place again and you're banned from Morden". So that's why anything to do with karaoke, I just have flashbacks that awful moment. So I need to rekindle that moment and hopefully to do my George Michael rendition in a better way.

Karen: Exactly. By the way, the one thing I didn't mention is it's not just random people that we put you with: you go on our website storiboardclub. com and you take a personality quiz and we match people within your age range. Within 10 years, within your location, and for dinners, for example, you'll choose a budget and food preferences, if you're vegetarian or vegan or halal or whatever. So we're matching you against all those criteria, so the idea is you should be compatible. It's not random, it really isn't. And we've also started to do women only events. It's 50: 50 our gender. We don't guarantee every single event is 50: 50. We try and get six, sometimes it's five, sometimes it's eight, but we try and go within five to eight, that kind of realm. We've got all over London, North, South, East, West, Central, and we're in five other cities to London. So yeah, it's really exploding.

Edward: That's incredible. Ah, listen, I'm gonna try it out. So for someone wants to come and check this out. It's StoriBoard...

Karen: StoriBoard Club, spelt with an "i", .com is the place to get registered and join.

Edward: Fantastic. Karen, thank you so much for coming in. Karen Harris, StoriBoard. I think you are literally not just bringing the world together. You're bringing a whole of London together. Which is fantastic. Thank you. I hope so. Thank you. I'm going to try it out. Great. Thank you. Thanks for coming in.

A huge thank you to BBC Radio London for welcoming StoriBoard into their studio, and sharing StoriBoard's concept across London.

Make new friends by joining the StoriBoard Club. Take our 5-minute quiz, get paired up with five like-minded people, and enjoy exclusive discounts and treats from our partner venues. Making new friends has never been so easy!