Jennifer, if they're into bonsai, and are online, then I'd be willing to bet half my trees that they are already on one of these forums. There aren't a lot of bonsai forums, so it'd be a simple matter to go onto each, start a thread asking who's in xx area, and go from there. You can all pick a forum as your main forum and send each other PM's if you want the smaller group thing. "smaller group" and "online", well, don't always go together LOL. Once you figure out if there's enough people interested in your area, you could do a private Yahoo group or something similar if you really want a small group.
As for the everyone on here knows everyone else, not really. It's like a workplace, where you are acquainted with everyone, then have a group that you talk to more often, and then there's a small group that you really talk too
. BTW, we do have a chat on this forum. If you and some other area peoples wanted to get together, you can go into chat and hop into one of the alternative rooms (besides the workshop) and chat away! No trying to figure out websites or anything.
Susan and crew