Need advice on starting a Python group

[gb345]

I'm hoping to get advice from anyone with prior experience setting
up a Python group. 

A friend of mine and I have been trying to start a
scientific-programming-oriented Python group in our school (of
medecine and bio research), with not much success.

The main problem is attendance.  Even though a *ton* of people have
told us that it's a great idea, that they're *very* interested,
and have asked to be added to our mailing list, the attendance to
our first few meeting has never been more than 5, including my
friend and I.  Last time just he and I showed up.

The second problem is getting content.  The format we'd envisioned
for this group was centered around code review (though not limited
to it).  The idea was that at every meeting a different member
would show some code.  This could be for any of a number of reasons,
such as, for example, 1) illustrate a cool module or technique; 2)
present a scientific research problem and how they used Python to
solve it, or get help solving it; 3) get general feedback (e.g. on
code clarity, software usability, module architecture, etc.).  But
in principle just about anything is OK: e.g. a talk on favorite
Python resources, or a comparison of Python with some other language,
or an overview of Python gotchas would all be fair game.

Also, we stressed that the talks were not expected to be polished:
no need for PowerPoint slides, etc.  Just project any old code onto
the screen, and talk about it, or scribble stuff on the chalkboard.

Still, we have a hard time finding volunteers.

And even when we've had volunteers, hardly anyone shows up!

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

GB

P.S.  There's a Python Meetup we could go to, but it does not fit
the bill for us: it doesn't meet often enough, it's sort of out of
the way, and has practically no one doing scientific programming.