Dan Morgan
Co-founder
Originally from the Midlands
We moved to the Dorset coast and realised something was missing. Not the views. The people. So we built a way to find them.
We are Dan and Natasha. Dan hailing from Solihull in the West Midlands region of England, UK and Natasha from Perth, W.A., Australia. We moved to Poole and quickly realised the coast is beautiful but finding your people is not automatic.
We tried the usual things. Apps, meetup groups, forcing conversations in coffee shops. Nothing stuck. So in January 2026, we posted a simple invite in a local Facebook group: Sunday morning beach walk, Sandbanks, 10am. Whoever wants to come, come.
The Coastal Collective was never planned. There was no business model, no strategy deck, no five-year vision. Just two people who needed friends and figured other people probably did too.
We were right. Turns out a lot of people along this coastline were waiting for someone to just say: meet here, this time, no pressure. That was it. That was the whole thing.
“We expected maybe ten people to show up. Forty came. The following week, sixty. By the end of February, we had a thousand members.”
We are not community experts. We are not event planners by trade. We are two people in our 30s who moved somewhere new and decided to stop waiting for connection to happen and start creating it instead.
Every event we run is something we would want to go to ourselves. If it feels forced, corporate or awkward, we scrap it. The bar is simple: would we actually look forward to this?
Everything we run starts free and stays free. No entry fees, no hidden costs, no membership required to show up. If you want to contribute to keeping it going, that option exists, but it will never be the price of belonging.
Every age, every background, every level of extroversion. The only requirement is that you are open to meeting people who might become your next close friends.
No forced fun, no awkward icebreakers, no name badges. Just real people, real conversations and the kind of community that does not need a script.
It is one of the most common experiences on the planet. Especially when you move somewhere new, change careers, leave a relationship or just realise your social circle has quietly shrunk.
It is almost never the wanting that stops people. It is the showing up. Walking into a room of strangers, sending that first message, going alone. That moment feels huge, even though it rarely is. Get past it once and the rest takes care of itself.
You cannot manufacture it. You cannot force it. You can only create the right conditions and then get out of the way. A time, a place, and a reason to show up. That is all it takes.
There is something about walking next to the sea that makes people open up. The Dorset coast is not just our backdrop. It is our secret weapon.
A space that feels good, because we keep it that way.
The thing people tell us most often is that this community feels safe. Warm. Easy to walk into. That isn't luck. It's the result of a quiet promise we made on day one and have kept ever since.
We protect this space. Not with rules for the sake of rules, but with a simple standard: everyone here deserves to feel comfortable, respected and at ease. The good atmosphere you feel is the direct result of that standard being real.
So when something falls below it, we act. Quietly, quickly and fairly. The vast majority of people who join are exactly who you'd hope to meet. On the rare occasion someone isn't, they don't stay.
If anyone ever makes you uncomfortable, tell us. One message is all it takes. We'll handle it with care and discretion, and we'll always have your back. This is a place to relax, be yourself and find your people. We'll keep it that way.
The Sunday morning beach walk is where most people start. No sign-up needed. Just show up.
See what's on