The current list of Club activities is shown below. Some past events are shown for historical reference, listed in chronological order from the most recent available. A brief synopsis of each event is shown on the left and a detailed meeting announcement in PDF or DOC form is shown on the right.
Club Activities - 2015/2016
September 2015 through May 2016 Meetings & Activities
Details of the full schedule are shown in the PDF to the right.
December 5, 2010 St. Nick and Neptune Christmas Party and Shell Auction
The Chicago Shell Club St. Nick and Neptune Christmas Party and Shell Auction will be held at Sawa's Old Warsaw Restaurant. Please R.S.V.P. by November 29, 2010. Details are shown on the PDF file to the right.
Topic: The Smartest Mollusks Octopuses, squid, nautiloids and cuttlefish: An introduction to the cerebral cephalopods with a special documentary entitled Kings of Camouflage.
Speakers: Jochen Gerber, President of The Chicago Shell Club Stephanie Clark, Malacologist at Large
The Show of Shows. You are invited to participate in a shell-themed quiz that will put your shell-saviness to the test! Don't worry, this will not be a hard test. It will be fun--regardless of how many answers you know. And there will be prizes!
Hosts: Jochen Gerber, Presidsent of Chicago Shell Club and Stephanie Clark, Malacologist at Large
This meeting will be a field trip to a park on the north side of Milwaukee where we may find some shelled creatures to look at. On our way back we will stop at the Milwaukee Public Museum to learn about their shell collection. Finally we will stop at the Milwaukee Ale House for dinner. See detailed schedule and directions below.
This will be the final meeting of the spring session of the Chicago Shell Club. The meeting will be at the home of Madeline Hayden and will be a pot luck affair. There will be a shell auction with many beautiful shells provided by Duane Tenhaus. Bring some food, bring a hearty appetite and your check books. As usual, we will be having elections for the club officers for the coming year. For additional details see PDF file to the right.
Our friend, Stephanie Clark, will be the speaker, telling us about her home, Australia. This is a great opportunity to hear about this great country from a very personal point of view.
Our first meeting of the season will be an open house held at the Lynn Funkhauser home at 1:00 pm Sunday, September 14th. Detailed information as how to get there is listed in the announcement sent to all of the members of the Chicago Shell Club. If you are not a current member and wish to attend, please contact Mary Owen at 312-225-4261 for directions.
Lynn is a member of the CSC and an expert photographer of southeast asia above and below the water.
This will be a time to get together and compare stories of summer shelling and other adventures.
There will be a Pot Luck Dinner, so bring your favorite dish(s) to share.
Duane Thenhaus will have a selection of beautiful shells for sale.
Club Activities, Fall & Winter Season 2007
December 2, 2007 St. Nick and Neptune Christmas Party
Dr. Jochen Gerber, President of the Chicago Shell Club, will present a talk entitled: The Complex, Weird and Funny World of Scientific Names in Mollusks.
Two subjects and two speakers. Topics: Seasonal Seas / Coral Seas + Mollusks in Action. Speakers: David Attenborough, Narrator, BBC & Discovery Channel and Joyce Matthews, Shell Collector & Film Maker from Salem, Oregon.
Deep Sea Explorations with the Manned Submersible Alvin. Presented by Janet Voight, Associate Curator, Invertebrates, Department of Zoology, Field Museum of Natural History.
The topic of our first meeting of the New Year is: "Interesting Things Come in Small Packages". Our speaker will be Dr. Stephanie Clark, the Assistant Collections Manager / Malacologist of The Notebaert Nature Museum.
The Chicago Shell Club annual St Nick and Neptune Christmas party and shell auction will start at 2 pm on December 3, 2006. More information can be found by clicking the two icons to the right.
Invitation to Chicago Shell Club Christmas Party
Map to Sawa's Old Warsaw Restaurant
The November 12th meeting will be at Helix as usual. Our speaker will be Sue Hobbs. Sue is a shell dealer who will bereporting on her experiences traveling through and collecting shells in Japan.
The first event of our fall season will be a trip to the Ravenswood facility of the Chicago Academy of Sciences. The newly appointed Malacologist, Dr. Stephanie Clark, will show us their collection and describe her plans for its future.
Our first event of the Fall 2006 season was to be a field trip to Aroma Park, IL to search for mussel shells at the confluence of the Iriquois and Kankakee rivers followed by dinner at a local pub. Trip details will be left here (and below) until a future date can be established.
April meeting is at Helix. Speaker will be: Carole Marshall from Lake Worth FL, a CSC member now active in COA, AMS and Florida shell clubs will share her shelling experiences and her Pecten expertise.
Our March meeting is at Helix. The speaker will be John Slapcinsky, Collections Manager, Florida Museum of Natural History. See announcement for more details. ==>
Our February meeting is at Helix as usual and will feature one of our ex-presidents, Ron Keim, telling us about his many trips to Hawaii. See announcement for more details. ==>
Sunday, December 4, 2005, 1:30 P.M.
Sawa's Old Warsaw Restaurant
The auction will begin at 2:00 P.M.
Please R.S.V.P before November 25th.
See announcement for details. ==>
Note: A power point presentation was shown during the Christmas party which includes some of the pictures of the last three Shell Club field trips.
A CD of this will be available at the shell club library soon. Look for it.
History of the Mussels of the Chicago and Fox Rivers
Sunday, November 13, 2005, 1:00 P.M. Helix Camera and Video Speaker: Roger Klocek, Conservation Biologist, John G. Shedd Aquarium
October 10 Field Trip to the Fox River in Aurora. Field trip:Freshwater Shells of the Chicago Area. Trip leader:Dr. Jochen Gerber, Collections Manager, Dept. of Mollusks, Chicago Field Museum of Natural History.
For trip plans and directions, see word documents & pdf files below.
Bring waders if you have them.
Plan to stay for dinner at a fancy restaurant.
