All Club Activities Suspended Until Further Notice
- salemmushroomclub
- Dec 5, 2024
- 1 min read
After careful consideration, the board has made the difficult decision to place all WVMS activities on hiatus.
Over the past two years, we've faced ongoing challenges with board membership and volunteer participation. Despite our best efforts to engage new board members, we've been operating with a skeleton crew handling multiple roles. Recently, our Vice President, has stepped down, leaving just three board members to manage all club operations. As your remaining board members, we have reached a point where we cannot sustainably maintain the club's activities at the level our membership deserves.
During this hiatus, the board will be exploring two potential paths forward:
Partnering with another established environmental organization in Salem, such as Salem Environmental Education, with whom we've successfully collaborated in the past. This would mean transferring club funds and materials to that group but would allow our mission to continue in a different form.
If a suitable partnership cannot be arranged, we will look at dissolving WVMS completely and transferring resources to a nearby mushroom club.
We want to express our heartfelt gratitude to our current and former board members who have shown extraordinary dedication over the years. The friendships and knowledge we've enjoyed through WVMS have been invaluable, and we're confident these connections will endure regardless of the club's ultimate fate.
More updates will be provided as soon as we have more concrete information about our path forward.
Many thanks to the selfless volunteers who have kept things going for years. Please do not give up. We are still suffering the consequences of the Covid era.
Salem is conveniently located at a junction of the main arteries between the coast and national forests . The vicinity has a population of 300K-500K residents. This helps us conduct some very rewarding forays.
My recommendations:
Do not merge this group with a non-fungi group.
Keep the group alive, even if it means doing one meeting or one foray for 2025.
Channel resources towards some online presence.
Have a waiting/interest list on this web site or a Google-docs link where people can show whether they are interested or not.
I will be…
This is soo sad. I haven’t renewed my membership (yet) but would again and would be willing to volunteer in some capacity as well.
If board members would keep it going I’ll sign up. Would have before but didn’t see an opening. I’ll feel really out of the mushroom loop if this club fails so if bodies would help, sign me up. Bob WILLEY
Although this is so sad, we completely understand. We appreciate all the hard work the existing board members did to try to revitalize and keep the club going. We know it was a tough decision. We are grateful for the times we've been able to come together and the friendships made. You will all be missed, but we surely hope we can keep those connections whether or not there is a club. Love to all! ~David & Eva Chase