advice, please: scheduling meetings for our gardening club

At our second meeting, one of the members (who happens to be my neighbor)
discusses her garden

I am seeking advice. Can my loyal reader offer any thoughts.

By way of background: this summer a  group of residents of the neighborhood formed the Jamaica Estates Association Gardening Club. It's under the auspices of the Jamaica Estates Association (JEA), which is a local community advocacy and support group*.

In the summer and fall we had three meetings. I blogged about them here and here. The third meeting was in a member's house. At that meeting we agreed to a target schedule for future meetings, generally the first Sunday of each month, with exceptions of December and February, which are cold weather months. At the time, we thought that we would have access to one of the local private schools, as one of the gardening club members is a member representing that school.

But it turns out that we can only use the school on school days, so Sundays are out. I am hesitant about suggesting that we move the meetings to a weeknight, because for working people (myself included), that comes with an extra layer of uncertainty.

As of now, we don't have a location for our next meeting, which is scheduled for January 7. The president of the JEA is a member of the gardening club (though I don't know if it's because he has an interest in gardening or because the club is part of the JEA). He has suggested that we might be able to use an empty room in one of the dorm buildings that St. John's University has in the area. He has reached out to them, but won;t hear back until January 2 at the earliest.

There has been talk about other possibilities, but there are serious drawbacks to each of them. We can continue meeting at members' houses, as we informally take turns volunteering our space. But we really need to have indoors as an option during the winter and in case of rain. The last meeting was indoors, in a member's living room. While we did fit, it was clear that if the group grows any more, we may have a problem fitting. I thought of offering my living room, which is slightly larger than where we met last time. But, still, if we grow too much, it's the same problem. Also, while I don't mind having my home be one of the regular locations, I don't want it to be the default where we just figure -- "oh, we'll just have it at Marc and Blair's place." QUite aside from that issue, even backyards may become a problem if we grow too much; who has unlimited folding chairs, tables and space for a big group?

One person suggested to me that we could meet at one of the local churches or synagogues. But scheduling would be a problem -- churches are generally being used on Sundays. And, of course, they would probably charge a fee. We don't want to have to pay a fee. It was also suggested that we may want to meet at a local restaurant -- that a restaurant may be OK with our meeting if we have food. But I just don't see a meeting working at a restaurant. Cunningham Park would be possible as an outdoor venue, except that we need an indoor space as a rain or cold location.

As of now, I am trying to schedule a meeting with the leadership of the gardening** club so we can discuss what to do. The meeting will be this week, but we haven't pinned down which day.

I am open to thoughts.

*The JEA is not an HOA.
**As an aside, we had quite the lively debate about whether to be the "garden" club or the "gardening" club.