Host a reading group

In 2024 we hosted a reading group around one reading:

There was interest in making this a regular thing: Future Reading Group

Below find steps and ideas for how you can set-up, plan, and facilitate the call for a reading group:

1. Gauge interest, collect reading suggestions and find a time

  • Post about it here in the member discourse on General Discussions and on the fediverse with the hashtag #CoSocialReads
  • Once a few other people have said they are interested and/or you have a general sense of the text

2. Schedule and make a reading plan

  • We have a availability scheduler you can use to help you find a time. You can create a poll (or use your own preferred service) and ask others to pick the times that work best for them
  • Once you have a time, create an event on luma and submit it to our shared calendar: https://lu.ma/cosocial ask @dawn or one of our Luma admins if you don’t have an account or need support
  • Considerations for scheduling:
    • You may want to break it into multiple sessions if the reading is a whole book
    • The first call is a good time to check-in on how much people can read and how frequently to meet
    • Good length is usually 60-90 minutes depending on the type of book, size and energy of the group
    • Typical frequencies range from every 2-4 weeks

3. Facilitate the calls

Here are some tips to facilitate the call:

  • Before the session:
    • Have read and thought about the texts
    • Identify and write out 3-5 “themes” or questions you are interested in from the readings
    • Prepare a place to take notes (it could be a separate document that you share a link for, or just setting up an agenda / thread on this discouse)
  • During the session:
    • Arrive on time
    • Ask for someone to take notes
    • Can start with an open round to see what people thought, use the themes you prepared or ask people about themes/questions they have
    • Keep time and gently wrap us up
    • (If rotating facilitators) ask for someone to volunteer to lead the next one
  • After the session:
    • Copy the notes to the members discourse

Note: @dawn amended and modified notes from a previous online reading group, Reading Data Together for this section which are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.