Please feel free to copy. I would say it works a charm this Telegram group. It’s a much lower barrier to post a bit on a small group of amateurs than on this nerdy platform. Most people cannot afford to lose the time to read a book or do a course. Maybe after they see it works well they can muster the courage..
And some people allready have entered from there into here, because the enthusiasm is grand. There are a lot of us on it, just chit-chatting as well and we catch people who have Anglophobia, because they can speak in their mothertongue. Telegram translates if you want it to. We’re guiding, people chime in with questions and awing and aaaaahing over seeds and startted seeds.
Apparently it worked very good with the English, who started a whatsapp group as Holly described it. People uploading photos of their grow outs and comparing notes.
And it attracts some weird collectioneurs as well, you know people who are a bit isolated in their niche and decide to say, eh, i got this if you want it in exchange for some of those starter kits seeds when they discover the coolness of it all!
It’s extradimensional.
Care to have a look Emily?
It sounds really neat!
Sadly, my browser doesn’t seem to be able to open it. Is it app-only?
I guess it is. Most people just appear when i send them the link.
I have Telegram on my laptop (as opposed to mobile phone app), so that’s also an option.
It’s a great group, I totally recommend it!
Well, I jumped through all the hoops to install it on my computer, and then after all that, it said I can’t sign up for it unless I use a cellphone . . . 
I’m sorry, guys. I guess it’s unusable for people who use desktop computers for everything. 
oh no, sorry to hear that Emily, i didn’t know about that!
It’s okay. (Hugs.) Technology often has unexpected hiccups! If it works for most people, that’s usually enough to be getting on with. Nowadays, I’m pretty weird! 
I’m so sorry Emily! It’s a long time ago I installed Telegram to my laptop.
Do you have a cellphone? If I remember right, I installed the app on my cellphone for the short time of installing Telegram to my laptop and then removed the app from the cellphone right after.
Away from technology, in nature, is the way to be! 
It’s all right. I know I’m a bit of an oddball these days. No worries. I’m glad this forum works for me! 
Giving this thread a bump up. Check out the EU seed swap Telegram group!
I’ll join you in the oddball group! It’s not working for me either.
@julia.dakin
So the seeds have been sent. Starter kits..@Thomas Picard and @Marcela joined in as well. They were very well received.People have started to send their own seeds to me as well, which is great! I’ll share on!
It’s a very alive group. People are very happy and enthused to be on there. Of course there are a lot of sleeper accounts, just like on GTS discourse, but some people are really into the concept and have started to send growth reports. We’re at 54 members and still new people join in.
The thing is that it is way more low barrier. Unexperienced people dare to speak. A discourse blog is well set up, but because themes do not get lost it is intimidating to people who “just” want to grow plants and garden happily. Who didn’t read the book (yet), but try different ways.. WThe language barrier is less of a thing, it turned out people can just write in their mother tongue and it can get translated easily so people who don’t speak English fluently dare to speak up. We get people from permaculture Telegram groups or seed saving groups and they invite friends and shout it out further. Word is getting out there. And some of the folks have moved to here already…We plug Josephs book and articles etc. So yeah, things are moving.
That’s delightful, and I love that the language barrier isn’t really a thing there. That sounds super important for Europe!
What is a Telegram group and why waste time on one? Tom
Telegram is a social media network a bit like whatsapp, groups can chat amongst members. It depends on what chat if it’s a waste of time.
We exchange seeds and people exclaim things like “Wow, so happy this group exists”, “You guys give me hope!”, just yesterday.
What would you propose i should do to attract new people into the world of breeding that you would not consider a waste of time Thomas?
Hope you will consider answering.
I consider most digital interaction a waste of time. When i was working i answered 200+ emails a day. Since i have a staff of 1 now i don’t have any coordinating to do. As far as the attract new people to plant breeding i highly recommend directing them here, not starting a different group. I would see that as splitting efforts. Tom
I think there’s room for lots of different ways of communicating and different communities, and every new community that arises will cross-pollinate the others. This is true online, just like offline. It’s kind of like genetic diversity within a species. Or perhaps it’s more like growing a polyculture, rather than a monoculture. There may be a little competition for resources sometimes (such as people’s time or attention), but the benefits far outweigh the detriments.
There’s room for every kind of community that works to excite people about saving their own seeds and growing the things they value.
Thank you Emelie. That’s how i see it as well.
Thomas, the group consists mostly of people not very comfortable with English. Simply not everybody is.
The group consists of people who save their own seeds and have no notion about breeding.
The group consists of people with barely time to deepdive into a topic if they’re not sure it is for them.
And mostly a combination of them.
If there ever was a group ready to join our breeders efforts it is these people. And hopefully we might even be able to reach some younger people. The impact might be enormous if we managed to reach people with a life of breeding in front of them.
Some people have already moved on toward the forum here who wouldn’t have otherwise. The gap was just too big. Others will follow.
This is more like a suckering plum tree if we need a comparison, moving into fresh pasture covering ground previously uncovered but firmly connected to the towering mothertree. It can be cut lose and moved but will always carry it’s mothers traits. It’s not splitting.
As one of those newbies, member of both groups, I can share my humble opinion: the Telegram group is Europe oriented, making it more straightforward to share seeds and talk about climate, soil and such. Thanks to the built-in translation machine, English, French and Spanish is ‘spoken’ intermingled. To my feeling this group here (GTS Discord) is faaarrr ahead of what I’m just beginning to grasp. I’m mostly lurking, reading, often having the feeling I don’t know enough to contribute. But on this topic I’m an experienced user 
and can add my two cents. So, there 
. To me the online communities are not a waste of time, they are the places where I can connect with likeminded people, ask and share!