This sounds like you want to be a "bicycle dispatch rider" (I hope, I found some meaningful translation). I had two friends working in that area, and their job description matched 100% to what you describe you want.

However, you must be able to handle the street-stress. Sometimes I think they are suicidal in how they drive through the city.

My goals in searching for employment were 1) near zero commitment, 2) something that gets me out of the house, 3) the ability to have weekdays off when I want them. Joining a temp agency has worked out well for me. I work three weeks out of four, bring home enough to pay my startlingly low rent and expenses, and put about $600 a month into the bank (if I don't decide I need another wardrobe update).

Even majority of readers participated to these meetups every time, it doesn't matter. Quoting the about-post: ""Promoted" posts (appearing on the front page) are chosen by the editors on the basis of substantive new content, clear argument, good writing, popularity, and importance."

Meetup-posts do not contain new, important, argumentative content. It's meta-level discussion, meta that it bit by bit trying to take over the whole LW. I don't want LW that exists for posts about LW. Meetup-posts are not the only thing driving LW towards uselessness, but as far as I can tell, having those posts in the front page is by far the most visible and obvious warning sign.

How do you approach the matter

I gave a fairly successful talk at the Center for Inquiry's Student Leadership Conference this last summer on Bayes' Theorem and cognitive biases that was really a trojan horse for introducing fellow young atheists to the idea of rationality as an actual area of study.

one-to-a-small-roomful, with the general public

There were about sixty student group leaders of college and highschool atheist organizations in attendance.

how far can you expect to get?

Quantifying "fairly successful", I was approached afterward by at least six people who were interested in discussing my presentation and learning more. At least four more told me that they appreciated my presentation later that day or weekend.

Heavier than air flight? Yeah like that will work. Let me just get in my lead balloon.

I don't see much merit to this idea.

Publicly committing to attending to compensate for my natural tendency to forget.

Friday would indeed work better for me.

I will try my darnedest to be there, although this is literally the worst day of the entire month for me.

For some reason I'm awfully bad at bringing people together. There's something about the task that I can't seem to grasp, no matter how much I try and fail. Is there anyone on LW who started out with no talent for this, but managed to improve through hard work?

Last time we met up at Starbucks, walked across the street where some people got food to go from Burgermeister, then found an open building at Cal with plenty of free space for us.

Then it was wide ranging group conversation in mingle mode about the wide array of topics sometimes covered on LW. Then everyone was invited to my house to continue conversations and/or drink beer.

It's very casual and very low pressure. No one will judge you for not having read enough of LW or anything.