I’ve been a member of an online book club for over 20 years. It started out as a Yahoo group, it’s now a private group on Facebook.

if you are on Facebook, search for book clubs or book clubs in your area. There are 100s of them. Some better then others.

eta: be careful about most anything that relates to professions done online. There are people who don’t flinch sharing a negative comment made about a job or superior.

An online book group isn't new-- booktube (a subinterest area of youtube) has live chats, book groups, book discussions. It has been 20 yr, but i used to participate in an online book chat.

As for other topics, a lot of zoom groups have been born as a result of the pandemic. Professonal as well as social. My friend attends a couple of weekly/monthly zoom groups on diff topics. It's not my thing-- i don't get my motivation from others and it's not something I'd make time for-- but that's just me.

Oh yes, I forgot that for a time, I dabbled in some professional discussion groups on Linkedin. I was shocked at the acrimonious and "unprofessional" things people would say on the groups, and to me, they were quite serious forums. I quit relatively soon because even though some of the comments were useful, the majority were not and many outright scary weird . . . things I would never get away with saying on the job or in any other professional setting . . . so just didn't want to even be associated with it . . .

I think you start with looking at professional organizations (if that's your slant) or local organizations or meetup groups. Better still, one recommended by friends, peers, etc. It's a small investment to give them a try-- and they aren't as wide open and widely known as linked in.

I meet regularly with one book club through MeetUp where we meet monthly at a restaurant in a quiet corner and discuss the book, and enjoy good food together.

Currently, we are meeting online, but some day that will be in person again.

I had also joined a non-fiction one, but wasn't able to attend (10 am on Saturdays didn't work well for me) until it went online with COVID. No commute! I enjoy that one, too.

Back in the 90s I made some good and ongoing friendships by joining what was called Herb Study Group. Basically a gardening group that met at a herb retail outlet. When they closed down due to mismanagement, our group took turns meeting at each other's homes. We were still meeting until 2018, but too many of us were moving away to other parts of the country. I am still in touch with about half of them.

Artemis, although I much prefer meeting in person as we did the same as you, met at a cafe and had brunch together, I find I am getting to know the woman better during Zoom.

For a professional group, everyone should use cute pseudonyms, fake company names, and cat filters. Not joking!

Maybe you can start one?

I belong to 2 book groups that now meet on line. I found them through our local library and enjoy both.

I joined one this year that someone decided to start and posted on a Facebook group I belong to that is called Monthly book club so several people came from there as a start. It started in May of last year with our first zoom meeting and to start with we had a large group signed up, but the numbers have dwindled and I'd say we are maybe 10 or so that attend the meetings, but the people vary some. We do have some new members that are friends of other members now. We come as we can so some are not there every time. You are welcome to join us, but our selections might not be what you'd prefer. We started out with thrillers, but have expanded it to multiple genres where we have one for each month this year and we vote on the books for each month. We meet on Thursdays at 8pm CST. Our group has all age groups from all over North America along with some from Europe and Mexico where everyone have different backgrounds as well. For January we did "The last time I lied" by Riley Sagar and "Unwind" by Neal Shusterman and these were selected by members because they won two of our little contests. For February we did just one book - "The Great Alone" by Kristen Hannah and are meeting this week.

The genres are as follows for this year and we submit books to be voted on for each:

March - Biographies/Memoir

April - Thriller/Mysteries

May - Horror

June - Self-Help/Motivation/Inspirational

July - Fantasy/Science Fiction

August - Romance/Rom Com/Rom Drama

September: Crime/True Crime/Psych Non-Fiction

October: Goth/Dark

November - Survival/Action/Adventure

December - Historical Fiction/Historical Non-Fiction

Thanks for the offer Lyfia!! I love to read for pleasure but rarely do it anymore. Maybe someday I will get there, but right now I have to focus my limited resources more, which is kind of sad. I have a little reading room in my house and long to sit and read in the comfy chair, but it's not happening anytime soon . . . I'm looking for a sort of professional or action-oriented discussion group though.

In particular, I'd like to get a group of people together to talk about how we can work more for racial understanding and diversity of support and opportunity in our communities and professional work. I belonged to a multicultural group of Yemeni immigrants and long time native residents in my home town, we met monthly and had activities, but that is on hiatus. I have a couple of organizations I am nominally involved with and I'm seeking to get involved more in that realm. Years ago I used to volunteer with a camp that did weekend retreats for high school students to combat bullying and other socio-emotional issues that the students were dealing with. It got started by one school that had a rash of suicides and they wanted to create a better atmosphere at the school. However, they stopped doing it, probably because in my state, so many schools are cash strapped even though troubled. I'm trying to think of a way to start that kind of thing up again . . .

The second thing is I am trying to network with folks who are doing restoration work on their land or permaculture. There is a group in a town about an hour away from me, but they don't do anything monthly, just have a listserv. Theoretically I'd like to network with folks closer to home so we can actually share resources and get together once the pandemic subsides or the weather warms up . . .

You're right in that I might have to start something like this myself, and I'm wondering if anyone has done something like this? I have a feeling it is not that easy to pull off successfully . . . (having planned some statewide professional conferences, I know how tough it is to get everyone on the same and productive page) . . . not impossible, just tough.

I started on GW sometime in the '90s. So long ago that I had a dial up modem. I was creating gardens in my Pa. weekend house, specifically Southern Lancaster, and posted on the Pa. garden group. It was wonderful. There were plant swaps, all my questions were answered by people much wiser than me. Most of all I loved hearing what others were doing. At that time the GW and the internet were too primitive for photos. All this to say, have you looked at the garden side? You may find a group right here that could at least support some of your goals.

I used to feel the same way about the Cooking and Landscape forums, lots of good discussion and sharing of expertise. But not so much anymore . . . I still like the Vegetable Gardening one . . . I tried the MI Gardens, Edible Landscaping, Garden Restoration, just not enough traffic with my specific interests.

I would try to start your own and realize it may just be a few people that attend or are interested, but a few is better than none in my book. First I'd consider the direction you want as you seem to have many different directions. When things are too open ended it is hard to get people to commit or stay longer term as what the group evolves toward may not be where their interests lie.

I probably would start with local Facebook groups and ask the admins if it would be ok to ask if there are anyone interested to join your endeavor. Starting a Facebook group for it might be a good starting point to get people easy access to join and then it can be directed from there to other venues. We started with free zoom, but all that could/wanted to pitched in 10 dollars to pay for the year subscription so we could go without having to re-start.

I think now is the time to do it as people crave social interaction and are most likely talking to their friends, but not talking with people that necessarily that has the same passion in other areas. I know my friends and I have similar interests in some areas and not in others and I wanted to talk about books which although some of my friends also like we are into very different books.

I would contact friends and acquaintances and see whether any of them would be interested in a discussion group (books, topics, etc.).

I belong to several groups that meet online. A California group (I live in the Washington, DC area) that originated to discuss topics related to the 1619 Project; an international group (Switzerland, Sweden, England) that has met for some 20 years; a high school group of friends that reconnected to get out the 2020 vote, and now meets monthly to discuss voting rights issues; a neighborhood book group that has been meeting for about 15 years; and another book group that has been meeting for over 20 years.

But all of these started out with real-life connections (some of them from decades ago that have been reanimated), and morphed into online meetings due to the pandemic (or distance). Most meet on a monthly basis, and it takes some juggling on my part to make sure all the groups won't land on the same date. People seem very open to meeting this way, and it's very satisfying and helps me feel connected and engaged.