Groups
Extremely Local to Where You Are
The Two Types of ELA Group
Editor-Led
ELA was originally started as a replacement for the NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program, which used an educator-led classroom format. ELA similarly uses one or more experienced writers to help inspire and guide a group of young writers, but focuses more on the ongoing process of drafting and editing than a series of time-limited, wordcount-based writing challenges.
Editor-Led groups should run with a focus on inviting young writers to discuss what kinds of books they like and what they like about them, then encouraging them to write their own story by taking elements of what they like in other stories and putting them together in their own way.
Once young writers have something written, the editor should encourage them to revisit the story and add more elements, either making it longer if the story is incomplete or making it more detailed if the story is complete but quite short. Keep feedback positive and try to focus on one specific actionable suggestion on each draft.
Do not focus on spelling, grammar, or punctuation at this stage. Repeat until the young writer feels that they have made their story as good as they can or until they want to try a different story idea instead. Stay flexible and focus on the fun parts of creative writing.
Peer-Based
An ELA group could also use a more traditional writing group format, with a group of writers of a similar age and skill working together to improve their writing. These groups should probably be based around a specific geographic location (see the "Local" in the name), but don't have to be. Peer-Based Groups should not include children or teenagers.
Peer-Based Groups can be a little more open to digging into the more challenging parts of the creative writing process, but should still focus on positive feedback and continual iterative improvement. Writing is already difficult enough; no one needs discouragement from others while working at it.
The ELA ethos is still about fun, welcoming, hobbyist creative writing. Writing for commercial publication or critical approval or literary awards is already well represented by other organizations. ELA is about creating art for the fun of it.
An Approach, Not an Organization
The thing that both types of groups have in common is that ELA is an approach to creative writing, not an organization. ELA won't host a cloud-based text editor or forums itself, but will instead rely on other solutions and services that already fill those needs. It will also rely on existing places and spaces to form local groups around. This sidesteps two of the main things that lead to the downfall of NaNoWriMo: high operating costs that were not abled to be covered by donations, and the need to vet large numbers of moderators, group leaders, educators, and employees.
The issues with having an extremely active and complex centralized website and community is, on the one hand, a good set of problems to have. NaNoWriMo was a hugely successful community of writers, but the challenges of fitting all that excitement into a single organization eventually became too much. In any case, setting aside the very real financial, technological, and logistic challenges, all that is antithetical to the amateur-friendly ethos of ELA. Anyone can write; you don't need any official validation to know that you successfully did it.
Likewise, ELA takes a more hands-off approach to ensuring that there are no bad actors in the organization by simply not having an organization or a directly-hosted community. No one is officially part of ELA, and it operates under the assumption that if you have a local group of writers meeting within a space or community, that space or community already has some level of vetting going on. Certainly, anyone with access to a class of students or a library of patrons will have been already vetted by the organization that gathered that group of children and teens in the first place. Similarly, children and teens can't just sign up for an ELA group remotely and be connected to unknown organizers because ELA will never provide a login or a hosted community that people can join over the Internet. All communication will be done within the local groups directly, or over public channels on services with their own moderation systems in place.
In summary, ELA is an invitation to create new stories, and any attempt to organize that beyond what is needed for the simple joys of writing and sharing your writing with friends is a distraction.