For the Monday February 5th, 2018 meeting, our speaker will be Dr. Christopher May, President of the Arizona Mushroom Society, speaking on the many mushrooms that grow in Arizona and the habitats where they are found

The meeting will start at 6:30 PM in Room 101, Casa Del Prado in Balboa Park. We will take Dr. May to dinner before the meeting around 5:00 at the Blue Water Seafood Grill. Come along to meet Dr. May over dinner.

LECTURE OUTLINE:

Residents of San Diego are no doubt familiar with the influx of “Zonies” who invade the beaches and amusement parks of their fair city to escape the Arizona summers. Few of them, even many members of the San Diego Mycological Society, are aware that there is a similar but much smaller migration of knowledgeable mushroom hunters in the other direction at the same time. The hot weather of mid-July to mid-September is the season when near-daily monsoon thunderstorms dump copious moisture on the heavily-forested mountains that rise from the deserts to almost 13,000 feet elevation in the northern and eastern part of the state. During this short but usually productive season, the forests respond with a riot of fungi of all descriptions, including many of the most desirable edible species like porcini, chanterelles, oyster mushrooms, and lobster mushrooms.

The climatological and geographic features that give life to our forests will be discussed, as well as the vast public lands where mushroom hunting is allowed (and a few places where it is not.) He will also talk about printed and on-line resources that are helpful to Arizona mushroom hunters, and speak briefly about the Arizona Mushroom Society and its events.

BIO:

Christopher May, M.D., is a radiologist in Scottsdale, Arizona. Until a few years ago, his only non-culinary involvement with fungi was limited to occasionally diagnosing fungal diseases on medical imaging studies. In the summer of 2010, he took his father to visit an old friend who is a mushroom farmer in England, and became fascinated by the complex and unfamiliar biological processes that characterize the Kingdom of Fungi. Shortly after his return, he went on a foray with the Arizona Mushroom Club and its founder, Dr. Chet Leathers, who instantly got him hooked on exploring the Arizona forests for wild mushrooms. Learning more and more each year about the topic, he started the Arizona Mushroom Forum website and Facebook page in 2014, providing a central meeting place for our local mushroom enthusiasts to share notes and photos. In 2016, when Dr. Leathers retired, the old Arizona Mushroom Club was reorganized into the Arizona Mushroom Society, an incorporated 501(c)(3) non-profit, and Chris became its first elected president. Under his supervision, the Society has grown to over 400 members who take part in 5-10 forays per year, depending on conditions, as well as lectures, workshops, and culinary events. He is a member of the North American Mycological Association (NAMA) and a volunteer identifier for its Toxicology Committee. He organized the NAMA Regional Foray last year in the White Mountains of Arizona, and was recently presented with the NAMA Harry and Elsie Knighton Service Award.

Christian Schwarz here, author of Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast, and citizen science/natural history educator. In light of the recent rains that have blessed our CA coast, I am looking to teach a set of mushroom-identification focused workshops in SoCal in the next two months.

The dates I am looking to fill are:
San Diego – 10th February
Los Angeles – 17th February

These walks are intended to be 6 hour sessions covering the finding, collecting, keying, vouchering, and basics of fungal biology. I am open to leading these walks anywhere nearby that is convenient for your clubs!

More info TBA

For the January 8th, 2018 meeting, our speaker will be Daniel Winkler speaking on “The Best of Mushroaming”
The meeting will start at 6:30 PM in Room 104, Casa Del Prado in Balboa Park. We will take Daniel to dinner before the meeting around 5:00 at the Blue Water Seafood Grill. Come along to meet Daniel over dinner.

Please note the meeting is at 6:30 PM on Monday January 8th in Room 104, Casa Del Prado in Balboa Park.

Daniel’s short fungal biography:

Daniel is the author of field guides to Edible Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest and California (both Harbour Publishing, 2011 and 2012) and Amazon Mushrooms (co-authered 2014). He grew up collecting and eating wild mushrooms in the Alps and has been foraging for over 20 years in the PNW and beyond, sharing his enthusiasm as a mushroom educator and guide and as PSMS vice-president. In his presentations he is combining his stunning photography with an often funny blend of entertaining stories and scientific information; he likes to refer to as “edutainment”. Having been in love with mushrooms since early childhood Daniel managed to bend his career as an ecologist and geographer focused on High Asia towards researching rural Tibet’s enormous fungal economy. His Cordyceps research has been featured in The Economist, National Geographic, New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, BBC World Service etc. In the last decade Daniel started exploring neotropical fungi. With his travel agency MushRoaming Daniel is organizing mushroom focused eco-adventures to Tibet, Bhutan, China, the Amazon, Colombia, the Austrian Alps and the Pacific Northwest since 2007. [www.mushroaming.com]

Our December 4th, 2017 meeting is a potluck dinner and white elephant gift exchange. The dinner starts at 7 PM in Room 101, Casa Del Prado in Balboa Park. Please bring a cooked or cold dish and your own beverage. (Note: there will be no kitchen access) The club will provide plates, cups, napkins, and utensils, but feel free to bring your own. If your dish contains wild mushrooms, please provide identification of the type contained in your dish.
For those that want to participate in the White Elephant exchange, please bring a wrapped present for the exchange. Mushroom themed items are always coveted and unique packaging or wrapping can make the exchange even more fun.
Volunteers are needed for setting up and decorating the room. Set-up will begin around 6:30pm. We need help arranging tables and chairs, placing tablecloths, and decorating. Feel free to bring greenery or decorations.

The November meeting will be packed full of activities: DIY Mushroom Arts and Crafts, a Holiday Sale, and Officer Elections; you won’t want to miss it! The meeting will be hosted in Room 101, Casa Del Prado in Balboa Park at 6:30 PM. There will be no dinner before the meeting. We could use volunteer help with setting up tables before the meeting.

DIY Mushroom Arts and Crafts
Our last watercolor painting event was so popular that we are doing another mushroom themed Arts and Craft meeting with expanded DIY activities. The club will provide the crafting supplies. Feel free to bring mushroom specimens to use as still life displays. There will be supplies for creating stamped, colored, or watercolor painted greeting cards, as well as string art and large or small watercolor paintings. Here are a few examples:

Holiday Sale
We will also have a few vendors selling items so you can start the holiday shopping early for those mushroom lovers in your life. The club will also have some books and shirts for sale that are normally sold in our “bookstore” during the February Fungus Fair. Remember half the proceeds from club book sales go directly to the club to support club meetings, events, and speaker fees.

Elections:
We are a volunteer organization and need individuals to donate their time to keep the club operational and planning all the great talks, content, and forays that you have come to enjoy. Please consider running for one of the offices as we could really use your support.
Board Officer Positions and Responsibilities
The board is responsible for scheduling speakers and the Fungus fair.
**President: responsible for presiding over the monthly meetings, heading the monthly board meetings, submitting the room reservations, usually attends the SDBGF meetings to represent the club.
**Vice President: assists President and performs presidential obligations when president is indisposed.
**Secretary: take notes at board meetings and distributes information to the group.
**Treasurer: handles membership dues, handles accounting (speaker payments, dinner payments, expense reimbursements, etc.), pays club taxes from fair sales.
**Board Member at Large: non-officer who has responsibility of voting at board meetings and assisting with scheduling of speakers.

Non Board Positions
**SDBGF Representative: attends the SDBGF meetings and represents the club at the meeting. Participant is usually the president or a board member, but can be anyone affiliated with the club.
**Website Manager: posts club announcements on website.
**News Editor: sends emails about club events and meetings as well as other fun fungus facts and information
**Social Media Manager: posts club announcements on social media outlets.
**Audio/Visual Manager: sets up projector and audio equipment for club meetings and the fungus fair
**Public Relations Manager: manages advertising of the fungus fair (most advertising occurs in November for the February event).
**Foray Manager: organizes club forays (including obtaining foray waivers).