We serve neurodivergent and disabled people and our allies with passion-driven programming organized by our learners.

We do concerts, lunch & learns, field trips, art shows, art lessons, dance lessons, cooking lessons, adulting lessons, meetups, marketplaces, and more. We pursue experiential learning and practice collaboration and iteration while doing work that impacts community. And, also, having fun.

But how we gather matters as much as what we do.

Most events aren’t built for us. Standard formats — loud rooms, back-to-back sessions, forced real-time participation — are designed for a particular kind of bodymind and exclude everyone else by assumption. We don’t replicate those defaults. We come from the DIY punk tradition and the neurodivergent internet tradition: if the existing infrastructure won’t hold us, we build new infrastructure.

Every Stimpunks event is an attempt to build Cavendish Space: psychologically and sensory safe environments where neurodivergent and disabled people can show up whole. Caves for quiet reflection. Campfires for learning together. Watering holes for peer connection. Async and written communication alongside spoken. Interaction badges. Safe foods. Somewhere to sit down and recover. These aren’t accommodations bolted onto a standard format — they are the format.

Our learners help put on our events, climbing learning curves as we go.

Read more about how and why we gather the way we do in Our Events Philosophy.

Calendar

The steady rhythm of community life, at a glance. Our TeamUp calendar holds all of it — every Solidarity Sesh, every Infodumplings, every Campfire, every Watering Hole Hang — so you can find your way in whenever you’re ready.

How These Spaces Work

A note on how these spaces work:

Infodumplings, Campfire, and Solidarity are community spaces first. The Stimpunks team opens the room, but the room belongs to everyone in it.

We are Autistic, ADHD, and otherwise disabled and neurodivergent people ourselves — hosts and community members alike, moving through the same fluctuating capacity as everyone here. Disability and chronic illness rarely move in straight lines; capacity shifts day to day, sometimes hour to hour (Kafer, 2013; Schalk, 2018). Some days we’re there right on time. Some days a flare-up, a shutdown, a meltdown, sensory overload, or simply the unpredictable weather of living in a disabled and neurodivergent body means we can’t make it, or need to step away early.

When that happens, there’s no need to wait, and no need to worry. If a host isn’t there, the space is still yours. Carry on the conversation, sit in shared quiet together, or let the room rest for a while — all of these are valid ways to hold the space. Nothing here needs a host’s permission to happen.

This isn’t a gap in the plan. It’s the plan. Communities that only function when everyone shows up at full capacity aren’t accessible communities (Mingus, 2017); they just haven’t met disabled and neurodivergent reality yet. We’d rather build something that flexes with real, fluctuating bodies and minds — spaces held collectively, in the spirit of interdependence and mutual care rather than hierarchy (Piepzna-Samarasinha, 2018).

Monotropism reminds us that attention and energy are finite resources, pulled deeply into whatever has our interest in a given moment (Murray et al., 2005) — for hosts and community members alike.

Crip time asks us to loosen our grip on rigid schedules and let time bend around what bodies and minds actually need (Kafer, 2013).

So: come as you are, stay as long as suits you, leave when you need to, and know that whether we’re in the room or not, this space is still safely, wholly yours.

References:

• Kafer, A. (2013). Feminist, queer, crip. Indiana University Press.
• Mingus, M. (2017). Access intimacy, interdependence and disability justice. Leaving Evidence.
• Murray, D., Lesser, M., & Lawson, W. (2005). Attention, monotropism and the diagnostic criteria for autism. Autism, 9(2), 139–156.
• Piepzna-Samarasinha, L. L. (2018). Care work: Dreaming disability justice. Arsenal Pulp Press.
• Schalk, S. (2018). Bodyminds reimagined: (Dis)ability, race, and gender in Black women’s speculative fiction. Duke University Press.

Recurring Events: The steady pulse beneath everything we do.

Our recurring events are the heartbeat of Stimpunks: weekly, consistent, and always here.

Solidarity Sesh: The radical act of showing up for each other.

Solidarity Sesh is a peer-run weekly gathering rooted in mutual aid and shared experience. Every Saturday morning, neurodivergent and disabled people come together to share life and stories — not as patients, but as peers. Autistic-led and community-centered, Solidarity Sesh taps the radical roots of peer support: self-determination, care outside of systems, and the simple, powerful act of being witnessed by someone who gets it. Saturdays, 10AM Central.

Infodumplings: Bring Your Muchness Down the Rabbit Hole

Infodumplings is a weekly community gathering space where neurodivergent and disabled people bring their muchness — their special interests, their deep dives, their rabbit holes — and share them with people who actually want to hear it. Thursdays, 7PM Central.

Campfire Learn Together: Expert lecturers. Community wisdom. Zero hierarchy.

Campfire Learn Together is our weekly Sunday gathering where we watch, move, think, and talk together. We screen a lecture from thinkers like Alfie Kohn, take a bodymind break, and then dig into the ideas as a community. No hierarchy. No one-way transmission. Just omnidirectional learning in a real Cavendish Space campfire. Sundays, 10 AM Central.

Watering Hole Hangs: Drop in. Space out. Belong here.

Watering Hole Hangs is a drop-in space for neurodivergent and disabled people to gather without an agenda — nature live cams rolling in the background, chat open, body doubling welcome. Come work on your own thing in the quiet company of others, or just be near something alive. Weekdays, 9AM Central — and spontaneously whenever someone feels like gathering.

Join our community to access our recurring events.

Event links and updates are posted in our Discord. Join to stay in the loop.

Want to be part of how Stimpunks runs? Our team meetings are open.

Recurring Meetings: Come help run the thing.

Our weekly team meetings are open to everyone in the Stimpunks Discord community. We default to open.

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🛠️ Operations Meeting

Every Tuesday · 10:00–11:00 AM CT

Where we run the thing.

The Operations meeting is where the work of keeping Stimpunks running gets done. Each week we hold a task scrub — triage, prioritize, and move work forward together. If you want to understand how the organization operates or get involved in the doing, this is the meeting for you.

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✏️ Editorial Meeting

Every Thursday · 10:00–11:00 AM CT

Words, design, and everything we put into the world.

The Editorial meeting is where we work on the Stimpunks website and print materials — writing, editing, and designing for publication. Whether you’re a writer, editor, designer, or someone who just cares deeply about how we communicate, join us.

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All meetings are open to Stimpunks Discord community members. Join the Discord to get meeting links and stay connected with the community.

About Our Events

Stimpunks Learning Space offers community and space for passion-based, human-centered learning with purpose. Our learners collaborate on distributed, multi-age, cross-disciplinary teams with a neurodiverse array of creatives doing work that impacts community. Via equity, access, empathy, and inclusivity, we create anti-ableist space compatible with neurodiversity, the social model of disability, and all types of bodyminds. We create space for the neurodivergent and disabled people most ill-served by “empty pedagogy, behaviorism, and the rejection of equity“.

We pursue programming driven by passion and purpose. A teenage Stimpunk helped us put on Metal Health Fest. He came up with the idea and collaborated with us and a live music event coordinator using our communication stack. He helped pick the lineup, design the posters, write the copy, deal with logistics and legalities, setup the speakers and soundboard, and keep people safe. He helped troubleshoot along the way, keeping the event on schedule and on budget. He learned collaboration while putting on a show that our community really enjoyed. To top it off, he earned service hours at school.

Check the page for our learning space for more. Our learners help put on our events, climbing learning curves as we go.

Visit our Events Field Guide for how we put on welcoming events.

Attending one of our events? How can we meet your needs? (survey)

Past Events

“Alright now, hootenanny time.”

Nina Simone – Go Limp (Live At Carnegie Hall, New York, 1964) – YouTube @1:34