At the ELO Town Hall, which was held on the first day of the 2019 ELO conference in Cork, the artist Annie Abrahams raised the topic of initiating and facilitating a series of virtual meetings for the ELO community to further community discussion, to increase the frequency of community-wide gatherings, to involve members who may not be able to participate in the annual conference in person as a result of economic or other issues, and to address growing environmental concerns about the contribution of long distance travel to global CO2 levels. Abrahams' suggestion was met with interest by the ELO community though concerns were raised regarding the logistics of scheduling such meetings and the availability of resources for managing and administering such gatherings. As a follow up to Abrahams' suggestion, Deena Larsen proposed, in August, 2019, that the ELO community engage in something she referred to as "small salons," which she described as a gathering "almost like an extended family, which has a core group of people that participated and could function online.” She suggested that such a series of salons might foster more in-depth discussion and allow those with access issues a slight taste of the face to face networking and idea exchange possible at the ELO conference. In November, 2019, Larsen and Rodgers scheduled a call with one another both to follow up on some discussions they had been involved in at the ELO/Cork conference and to revisit the "small salons" proposal from August. In the course of this and one other conversation in December, 2019, Larsen, Abrahams, and Rodgers laid out a framework for facilitating a virtual meeting of ELO members, the first of which would take place on January 14, the second Tuesday of the month, at 10 pm GMT (5 pm Eastern, 3pm Mountain, 1 pm Pacific, 11pm Paris time) (this time was chosen as one that would allow for the maximal participation from all time zones). The discussion on January 14 would be dedicated to discussing the purposes of these small salons and to signing up volunteers to facilitate the monthly salons. Thirteen individuals signed up to participate in the first virtual ELO salon and ten sessions were scheduled for the second Tuesday of the month from February - November, 2020.
(Source: Salon documentation, written by Johannah Rodgers)