Hi Shari,
It took some time to find this out, and I'm constantly looking, so be patient with yourself. Living in a large city might be the difference, but I doubt that small communuties don't have stuff going on, since volunteerism is a bigger part of small communties.
Today I confirmed that one of our largest grocery chains have cooking schools, with online registration, up to midnight if I like, and there is room in the class. I'm disappointed with myself, but the reality is that I just poke around into whatever's going on.
I admired your advocacy in your other thread, but I can't make that a priority, with caregiving requiring so much of my energy. Following your passion(s) is a great start, and researching on the internet, newpapers, magazines will help the search. The cooking cooking schools were all reviewed a few years ago in a paper, and I kept the links in my favourites. I can see how committed some people are with their commitments into february, since the online registrations are already full for some courses. Maybe a librarian can help you, since they manage information, and life is all about that. Children are so adept, that they can, according to a lawyer and moral theologian, sit in her classroom as she's teaching, and seamlessly quote from their laptop computers any reference to a class' issues, to her amazement.
It's hard to know what your passions are, but I'm not sure I'd want to be in your way, if you began something. Building on your interests will lead you, just as you moved politically for your daughter(from your other thread) and the meetup.
Starbucks has a lot of affluent customers, at their prices, so I noticed that other coffee places have poetry readings, discussion groups(philosphy or religious or political) to compete with Starbucks. Now there are fancy machines to compete with Starbucks, so people's minds are constantly conceiving ways to meet our needs to connect and make a profit.
It's unlikely that your community is full of couples who work, and retire at home without any interaction after work, as I said earlier, since there have to be extra curricular activities outside of schools of children of the couples, and the couples have to be engaged politically, socially, economically, religiously, etc. If you look at a local person's resume(they're all online now under the popular job networking site, where they list their cv) you'll see local people's involvement, and their desire to professionally network, even though yours is for fun/recreation/leisure for now. I can't list the link due to this site's restrictions.