| thinking about this some more, i remembered one experience when i was traveling in new zealand. i looked up all the lug mailing lists in every major city and told them i was coming for a visit and that i'd like to meet some people, and even offered to give a talk about one of the things i had experience with. the result was that in every city i went to i got a few people to hang out for an evening and in some locations i gave a talk. i remember in at least one location i was told that my visit motivated the online group to get together physically again, which they hadn't done for some time. so maybe you can look for the online groups, get active in those and then offer yourself to host a meeting or two. scout locations, but keep it simple, to the extent that you are comfortable with. making a reservation at some restaurant may be all it takes to get started. in beijing we had an active group but at one point we didn't have a suitable location, so we made an activity out of it. a few of the more motivated people would meet weekly in a different area of the city and actually walk the street to scout for a location. when we found a place we'd go in and test it, and if it was ok, we would hold the next meeting there. the important part is that because the goal was to test locations, there was no expectations that i as a host had to find and check the location before hand, nor that the locations we tested would be good. another thing was that the people who came with me to scout for locations were the ones who cared most about the group. and they were the ones who took over leading the group after i left. the group is still going. survived through covid. in other words, if there is no offline meeting yet (or not anymore), maybe you can try starting one. |