The Chattanooga Mushroom Club is Back from Summer Break!
Well, sorry for the conspicuous absence of the Mushroom Club from the community this summer. I promise it wasn’t for any lack of interest in you guys or mushrooms, just a jam packed season full of music and travel AND lots of mushroom foraging.
I hope you guys got on the trails and found some tasty fungi. Our best finds were tons of chanterelles on the Cumberland Plateau at Savage Gulf and in Prentice Cooper ( where we also found more Shaggy-Stalked Boletes than I thought possible) and most recently it has been Chicken of the Woods season and boy, have we found some beauties!
So as we await Oyster Mushroom season and the fall and winter where we can start inoculating more logs…I wanted to reach out to you guys to talk about the future of the club.
First though, speaking of logs…some people have messaged me that their oyster logs are already producing! I am patiently awaiting mine. For the last several weeks I have been watering them every few days pretty heavily. If you have any kind of tank or other vessel (aka kiddie pool)…maybe its time to give them an overnight soak to kick start them. I have not heard of any wine cap fruiting yet. I am worried about my bed. I saw dense vigorous mycelium growth about a month after we made the bed but I got slack about keeping it moist and we have had so many dry spells Im not sure that they stayed hydrated enough for the massive flush I was anticipating. I can’t wait to hear about any success you guys might have had on this front.
Anyway, sorry about that digression, I am easy to lead off topic when it comes to growing mushrooms. Back to club business - obviously there is a lot of interest here and a lot of talent. SO!!! I need to ask for help. I frankly do not have the background in organizations to keep this going and on a regular schedule on my own. If you have experience with clubs or other groups and would like to be a part of the structure of the mushroom club…PLEASE nominate yourself for a position - again, I know little about club organization so this is off the top of my head but I was thinking we could use the following positions to get us off the ground in a real way -
President - Set the direction of the club and determine priorities for what we offer to the community. I am happy to fill this role but if someone has some preternatural vision of where this mushroom rocket ship could go, I am happy to hand over the controls
Vice President - Act in President role when they are unavailable, scramble ideas on president-y type stuff to refine and mellow out any crazy presidential ideas…no coups under the watchful eye of the VP. At the beginning especially maybe act as the Membership Chair too to keep things simple?
Secretary - Keep track of the minutia that the president probably sucks at.
Tresurer - Keep track of the sweet-sweet myco-bucks. Fundraising stuff too, so that we can do cool events like mushroom dinners the fall!
Events Chair - See mushroom dinners comments directly above…also coming up and coordinating foraging, workshops, field trips etc.
Web and Social Media Chair - This one is pretty self explanatory but we need someone in this role ASAP as you can see by the loopy post you’re reading now.
Anyway, I am sure that I probably am missing some stuff but that’s why I need you guy’s help. I say we plan a planning meeting in the next few weeks and see what we can make happen. Now is a very mushroom-y time of the year and it would be nice to get things going.
Please let me know what you guys think. Lets use the comments section below so that we can keep the conversation public and in one place.