Here is some overseas inspiration for a way to connect in the real world with your local news community. From the New York Times:

Several coffee shops set to open next month in the Czech Republic plan to offer more than the usual array of cafe services. As they sip their drinks, visitors will also be able to surf the Web, get help in building social networking profiles or even chat with reporters working right next door putting together their local newspapers.

The newsrooms-cum-cafes are part of a new venture in so-called hyperlocal journalism, which aims to reconnect newspapers with readers and advertisers by focusing on neighborhood concerns at a neighborhood level: think garbage collection schedules, not Group of 7 diplomacy.

Hyperlocal publications have been springing up across Europe and North America as newspapers seek a formula for survival. But the Czech plan, the project of PPF Group, an investment firm, goes unusually far in its goal of weaving journalists into the communities they serve.

No expectations here Finding ways to connect with your readers in the world is an important part of successfully building a local news site site. Not sure if the Czech business behind this effort has the rest of the success equation figured out but they've nailed the real-world presence element.

For your own hyperlocal site, the old school Web 'meet-up' is one way to do it but look for opportunities to make yourself open and available to your community as you work. Use Twitter to tell your readers where you are working. When you are covering an event, wear some branded logo gear, handmade if needed. Meet your readers.

I've also wondered when we'll see the rise of community news sites run by neighborhood entrepreneurs as an adjunct to their restaurant, cafe or ice cream shop. Challenge for a small business owner is to find time to also report the news. Might there sometime soon be a few coffee shops that hire a neighborhood reporter as employee #2?