Last summer, inspired by the incredible range of topics explored in depth on the Wait But Why (WBW) site, I wanted to start a local, personalized instance of 'Dinner Table'. The plan was to have a 4-hour get together every week with 5-6 people in a private space. At this gathering, we would enjoy a home-cooked meal, discuss a single topic (pre-arranged and agreed on by participants), transcribe the conversation into a summarized post, and then share the post to serve as thinking fodder.
In the end, the level of involvement required to arrange guests, topics, and logistics turned out to be too much for me to take on given my then circumstances. What ended up coming to life was a scaled-down version of this, where people got together weekly at a set location, at a stupidly early hour of the morning, and on a drop-in basis, to share in conversation about whatever they fancied. Throughout the four months of summer sunshine we had in Vancouver, we got together and enjoyed some really great conversations.