I personally have had the strongest and most useful connections to EA people in my city, mainly via social events and book clubs. And I feel like the connections last best when there’s a mix between somewhat high effort events (such as a discussion group) and social interaction (ideally in person but also over chats and so on). So maybe you could get the best of both worlds by setting up some way for people to be social with each other after events. Maybe encourage people attending an event to join a slack or discord channel(or thread/chat) where they can talk to each other after the event and join other threads or channels if/when the one for the event dies off.
I personally have had the strongest and most useful connections to EA people in my city, mainly via social events and book clubs. And I feel like the connections last best when there’s a mix between somewhat high effort events (such as a discussion group) and social interaction (ideally in person but also over chats and so on). So maybe you could get the best of both worlds by setting up some way for people to be social with each other after events. Maybe encourage people attending an event to join a slack or discord channel(or thread/chat) where they can talk to each other after the event and join other threads or channels if/when the one for the event dies off.
This is a really interesting idea, thanks!