Start on time or a few minutes early. Chat with the first few people to show up for the first five or 10 minutes, so that stragglers can make it.

This chit-chat time is a golden opportunity for relationship building because it's naturally unstructured.

And then for the first few sessions, and whenever you have a newbie, explain how things will work structurally. It's good to set expectations so that people know how things are gonna work.

Stating Intentions
One thing that I always liked to do was go around one by one and have people tell the group what they're gonna be working on.

This is good for accountability, but also relationship building and community building.

Especially in the beginning, the groups are gonna be a bit small, so this is not gonna take too long to do.

I'd usually go first and just say "This is what I'm gonna be working on today. I'm gonna work on this, this, and this. Stephanie, what are you gonna work on today?"

And then she would say what she's gonna work on, or that she doesn't know, so first she's gonna figure it out and then blah, blah, blah.

This is really prime for community building because it opens an opportunity for people to talk about what they're struggling with, and that's how we bond with people. And also for people to talk about what's going well for them, which is also how we bond with people.

But it's also a golden opportunity to learn about what their priorities are, what their struggles are, and learn more about their lives because you're hearing like, oh, this is what she's up to each and every week.