I have so enjoyed the Natalie Goldberg workshops I attended in May and June and met some great people during the reading and writing sessions. Since then we formed a group: Writing Around the World and meet every Wednesday evening SA time and various other times as the group comprises people from around the world-France, SA, US and Canada so we have a wonderful and eclectic group of people.
Because (in a way) it is 'my' group I get to host the one hour sessions more often than not which was initially quote daunting, but (obviously) becomes easier the more often I do it. The session is an hour long and the 'host' generally has a quote and 2 prompts for each session with writing ideas for the week.
We don't discuss much, but do sit quietly for about 5minutes before we start the writing and then the 'host' leads the session keeping pace and time. So far it works extremely well and we all enjoy a quick 'hello' before we move into writing. What I do find is that the writing time stimulates my own writing and I really enjoy the variety and silent times.
Here is an example of tonight's session: