Committees of the Wisconsin Mycological Society are groups of members focused on one part of managing the Society.

All members are welcome to join in on any of the committees we have.  The WMS Board of Directors is a dedicated group of hardworking individuals, but we can always use more help from the membership to get things done!

Please let us know via the Contact Page if you would like to get involved with any of our committees and we will have our committee chairs contact you to start your journey! 

Our current (2025) committees:

Conservation and Stewardship Committee - WMS is involved in mycological education and recording the fungal biodiversity of our state. Through our events, we also monitor several mature and old growth forests in Wisconsin and examine the current state of deforestation, habitat degradation and how fungal ecology fits within that context. 


Events Committee - This is our most administrative and volunteer-based board committee.  All of our events big and small need to be organized with venues secured, set up, torn down and cleaned, needed permits obtained, foray leaders and lecturers lined up and vetted, workshops planned and run.  Within the Events committee, we also have separate sub-committees to organize all of our retreat forays which currently include: (1) Hiles Foray in based in Hiles, WI, (2) Rustic Camping Foray based in Bayfield, WI, (3) Tri-County Foray based in Cumberland, WI, and (4) the Northwoods Foray based in Cable, WI. We accept interest from members in working at these events as foray leaders, speakers and in other roles and accept volunteer interest as well.


Finance - While the finance committee does not actually directly spend WMS money, they are available to assist our treasurer and assistant treasurer and also meet to develop and oversee finance-related policies for WMS. Finance committee may also someday become engaged in seeking and applying for grants on behalf of WMS.


Governance Committee - WMS has new bylaws that were just passed at the end of 2024, but we also had a need to develop a variety of policies including a code of conduct and a conflict of interest policy.  This committee has met to draft those policies to bring to the Board for approval, and meets to assess the implementation of those policies.

Marketing Committee - Communicating our endeavors and the results of our fungal surveys (forays!) to our members is very important.  How else will anyone know what's going on? The marketing team helps create media to go in our emails and posts for our social media channels, makes posts and events on social media and generally works to keep our members up-to-date and to enhance our educational mission by communicating to the wider public.

Membership & Outreach Committee - WMS needs to make partnerships within the state of Wisconsin to be more effective at spreading education about fungi in our state and beyond.  We also discuss how best to celebrate and serve our members in this committee. We have created scholarships to our retreat foray events and created our new WMS Envoy positions to encourage more engagement in mycology in our state.

Merchandise Committee - WMS makes and sells merchandise that our members and fans can get to support our mission and look really cool.  Our current long-term goal is to re-develop an online store and sell our merch there.  Currently you are most likely to find WMS merch for sale at our retreat forays, our annual fungi fair, and a few other events.

Newsletter - Volunteers for this committee can either write or produce written or visual arts material for the newsletter, or help solicit material from others for our newsletter publication.  Volunteers can also help by copy editing our material or formatting it in Canva or another publishing program. Creative submissions are very welcome! Our newsletter has published mycology event reviews, recipes, poems, comics, illustrations, photography, book reviews, mycology resource recommendations, scientific news and views, and much more.

Science Committee - We are developing a more robust citizen science program every year. We have volunteers who educate us on the use of iNaturalist, help set up our new DNA sequencing program and connect with fungaria (herbaria for fungi) partners to secure a home for our specimens which connects them to mycology researchers. Let us know if you are passionate about science and want to join this committee or volunteer in these ways!

Wisconsin Wild Mushroom Certification Class Committee - this committee is largely focused on planning and conducting our Wisconsin Wild Mushroom Certification Class which we developed at the request of the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. You can read more about this class here. Members are welcome to join this committee!