I suspect a lot of the people here are struggling with the "build an affinity group" part of this as they don't know even 5 serious people who are willing and able to get shit done.

what makes it hard is that an affinity group either needs a larger pool of people to pull from or come together from the death of something older. otherwise, you end up trying to work with the first 10 people who come your way, only to discover after a bit that people will tell you they're serious all day but fail to follow through. I think this is something that will get easier with time as people get more used to the idea of "doing" rather than "talking about".

this kind of organizing is profoundly exhausting as you end up with a couple of serious people trying to pull teeth in order to get things done whereas affinity groups need a more horizontal structure as they're rooted in mutual trust. they're much too small for hierarchical structures to even function in the first place as personal relationships dominate.

I don't really have an answer for this but that the best time to get started was yesterday and the second best time is today. you're going to have to meet a lot of people and make a lot of mistakes before you find something that works for you. listen to your gut about people - don't extend trust where it feels uncomfortable and withdraw it when it doesn't feel safe.