Would you mind sharing your experience a bit more. What was the format of the meeting? what did you aim to get out it? How did you advertise the venue? Was it formal teaching or was everyone expected to read on their own and only discuss interesting points, solve exercises etc? Anything else you might want to mention.

Basically, I'm interested in organizing something similar in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada and I'm interested in other organizer's experience with this.