I've updated the contact page to link to our IRC channel:

http://openfarmtech.org/wiki/Contact_us
(click on "OSE IRC chat room")

I tried to do this sort of thing once, with a much bigger(thousands of people) but less motivated community.  No one came essentially, and those who did come did not come back.

 There are many dynamics involved which I think help to explain why. I think the main problem is that it is too slow to communicate over IRC for most people, who are not very fast typists. 

People also don't like the idea of a "meeting" with no defined agenda. And yet if you pick only one thing then a lot of people won't find it interesting enough and won't come.  In the end I concluded that better software and ultimately some money to entice people to come in some way was needed.  Once enough people come I think it could snowball as it would be more interesting and people would com back next time.

When it came to software I looked through essentially all the options for videoconferencing available, and the best I found by far was Vsee.  Google it.  But it still has major issues with handling the sound input etc. and there is too much configuration needed.

The next best was tinychat.    There are other platforms which looked better but had no free trial so I chose not to try them - there is so much crappy software out there it makes no sense to pay for something before you know it works as you need it to.  See my blog and search "virtualtinyhouseconference"

Something else to think about, with our busy lives, it may be hard to put aside a particular time like this.  In my case, it's nice to be able to reply on the Forum at my convenience.  But Skype might not be a bad way to go in the end.  At the project level this will be important.  A project cell would need to communicate as efficiently as possible in order to get anything done.

I agree, the IRC may not be the best in the end, but it's an option.  Lets see if it gets used.  Besides, I type pretty fast for a two finger pecking wonder...:)

The Dawg