The format for http://tribes.techendo.co/ has been meeting at my house and from 2-3pm we go around the circle, announcing our progress and problems, then as a group we offer our resources and help. After that we sit around and hack on stuff together and just socially chat.
We just started one of these within the company I work at. We are all working on a project on the side aside from our day jobs and I have to say it has been really helpful so far.
We only have 4 people so we take turns each week, 1 person brings a problem to the table and then we get 3 other peoples thoughts on it. That week is dedicated to the one startup... Because we work day jobs it works better this way as we won't have any astounding advances each week but each month we do.
