I am in Ontario ~ after the drowning incident in Ottawa where a child drown and the women was decreed to be 'illegal' just because she was having a play date with other providers at the time and therefore had more than 5 children on the premise while she was operating a daycare the risk is now too high!

So I do not meet up at peoples homes anymore unless our total number of children are less than 5 for some reason which I think is totally ridiculous but what are you going to do as much as I hate isolation it is not worth a huge fine or the loss of my business if clients think I am 'illegal' for any reason

So when we organize play dates now it is 'in public' at parks, OEYC programs run within the communities, the Children's Museum, Libraries and so forth ~ this way there is no risk of being seen as 'illegal'.

As for how to find fellow providers ~ I have met providers in all sorts of ways ... our region has always had some sort of local home childcare network at one time when I was new I belonged to three different ones, the OEYC runs a Childcare only playgroup on Friday mornings plus an array of other ones throughout the community where it is a mix of providers and parents, just talking people up at the parks, attending professional development and chatting people up and I have yes as you mentioned for your idea I have had providers contact me via my website and ask to network via that manner and I thought that was awesome way for them to reach out cause than I was able to let them know of all the other resources available to them!