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Focusing on a wild product: Mushrooms walk
Sommerser Convivium, Sommerset, UK
Suzanne Jane Wynn, slowfoodsomerset@aol.com

Away from organizing usual dinners or tastings, an open air activity over a weekend might help in building up a feeling of community among the members in a Convivium. By providing the opportunity of learning about an interesting food.

Our Convivium was founded in 2005. We cover a large area which is the whole of the historic county of Somerset. There are a lot of small villages, small towns, it is quite rural.

In first year, we were only gaining members. In the second year we struggled to maintain membership and add to it. We had a slightly growing membership, but it was a lot harder in the 2nd year to achieve the growth of the first year. We are above 50 but below 60 members approx.
We are not finding that much success in picking up new members during activities, at least not always at their first participation in an activity. The publicity for the Convivium through an event might be way to awaken interest rather than the actual event. There is a slow build on interest before people actually join. Prolonged contact perhaps works best. After hearing about Slow Food several times, people tend to want to join.
People need to see examples of what you are and represent. This is why, giving the appearance of the level of activity of the Convivium is a point brought up by new members.

Some members are journalists for national and local newspapers and have allowed for coverage, but we have more success contacting the newspapers directly.

We have an older membership, a lot are retired people. About 1/3 of our membership is involved in food production. If they work in food production, weekends are too busy for them so we hold things in the middle of the week for this reason. Sundays are also good although some people keep that day for the family.

Go wild
We were interested in organizing an event on wild products, so we thought about a mushrooms weekend. A lot of people were interested in learning about mushrooms. Also because it was a weekend, people were outdoors and bonded well, and the group started to gel. We also built a bit of flexibility into the event so that people could choose what they wanted to do, i.e. come to part of the day, or stay over or not.

Before the event we had a trial run. We visited the place where we were staying and eating to see how the event would go. The restaurant owner helped to find the mushroom expert. At the restaurant there where rooms available too. Someone also stayed in a b&b and in a pub.
The transport was organized by car sharing. Although the restaurant did not require deposit, we asked for 50% payment in advance. Obviously it seems easier when people are allowed to pay on the day of event rather than in advance, but there is risk of not getting money.
We gave basic hints and tips on clothing and things to bring by preparing an information sheet. We also communicated the itinerary. There were sheets on recognizing where members collected the mushrooms so they can recognize them later for a following mushrooms walk. This material was done by the Convivium leader on home computer and printer.

We paid a specialist for insurance reasons as well because we wanted to have a real expert on the subject. We had an introductory talk about mushrooms and then went to collect. We did the walk in Somerset, near National park that is quite rural. There are no members in that area, so everyone slept over. Participants were asked to help each other. At the end of the day everyone was tired but in a good way. We had a lovely meal based on mushrooms (but not necessarily on what we collected) in the evening which helped create bonds as well. The next day we looked at what people had collected.

As mushrooms is a wild product no producer was promoted through the event. The mushrooms expert managed to generate interest in wild food. It created a feeling of being a group for our rather new Convivium. Going away and doing a stay over activity helps for that kind of thing. Also when doing physically something, like a sausage making course that members did. There is a difference being a passive or an active activity.

Some more organization
One Convivium committee member helped out a lot, giving ideas and coming along to see if the location would work. Also members who participate in the Convivium leader’s cooking classes were called upon as the leader is used to working with them. Use of local knowledge of members for activities is important too.

We try to plan our program one year in advance and as event gets closer, more information is provided. We informed about the event in an e-mail newsletter which updates members on events to come and how past events went. Older members who do not have regular access to computer, get the newsletter posted every month.
We also put the event on our web site.
There was no publicity necessary for the event because the event was only for members. We didn’t need sponsors since the event didn’t require financial resources.

Next time it does not need to be the exactly same event not because it did not go well, but because we want to offer something fresh and different, i.e. by providing different locations.
Fact is that since it was an outdoor activity this contributed to its success.

What we want to achieve
We try to plan into our agenda joint events with other Convivia, but this does not always happen. Anyhow, our events are available to other Convivia nearby. Some people see this as good, others not so much: on one hand, members are offered to participate in different events, on the other, this can be seen as a competition between Convivia.

In the future we want to focus on learning activities. Many people are interested in just meals, possibly because they have less time to cook for themselves and therefore enjoy meals where they can eat well. But successful events are those that have created a greater sense of belonging to the Convivium among the membership.

We would like to let people choose their level of involvement in the Convivium, so i.e. we ask new members what interests them when they join and what they would like to share. Our monthly newsletter is a good communication tool for people who don’t participate that much and get news of what convivium is up to that way. One of our goals is to show that the Convivium is active, which encourages members to join.

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