thanks for the replies folks. One of the challenges facing the forming of this group is the fact that people interested in this area of exploration don't all live together in the same place, so for some, the distance to travel is a real inconvenience and cost burden. I have some people who will be traveling at least 6 hours to get to the area, so that is a definite obstacle.

i am always willing to come out to other part of the country and teach intensive workshops. It involves a modest amount of time to organize. I know there is lots of interest out on the west coast. The main problem with intensives is that the information brought forward quickly becomes overwhelming, usually around mid-afternoon on day two, and the chunk of time that people need to take means that after the las is over, they have a mounting stack of other stuff from their daily life needing attention, and thus it can be a challenge for some to get back to the material they learned and properly digest it. It's for these reasons I'm trying to form a study group that meets for a day or two every month or two - smaller more digestible chunks instead of 'the drowning'.

I'm not sure how much interest there will be in the North East for this sort of thing, and I'm going ahead anyhow. Even if no one showed up for the study group, I'm going to be continuing my own study of Japanese roof carpentry through the building of various roof models (and hopefully the occasional paid project will materialize as well!).