The UMRA Special Events Planning Group identifies, plans, and organizes social events for members and their guests. We encourage and promote social events proposed and organized by members. The Planning Group meets as needed throughout the year, and reports to the UMRA board through the UMRA Program Committee.
We regularly plan a summer picnic social, a fall river cruise, and a winter celebration to bring the light! Cabinets of Curiosity events are held several times each year.
Cabinets of Curiosity
From miscellaneous cabinets of curiosity in the seventeenth century to contemporary specialized museums, carefully curated material objects have become fundamental to knowledge making. UMRA sponsors a few tours each year to visit the rare and often well-hidden collections tucked away in storage across the UMN Twin Cities campus, typically visible only through with small selected items on display. Under the guidance of expert curators and librarians, we have been allowed to get up close and see rare and unusual objects. Attendees may also gather after the tour for discussion and treats.
If you have ideas for future social activities, or would like to join the planning group, please contact Jan Morlock, [email protected]. Below is a list of past events.
Upcoming Events
Group of tickets is reserved for us. Enjoy discounted tickets and attend with your fellow UMRA Members!
Cabinets of Curiosities will seek out the University of Minnesota Herbarium on the St Paul Campus. Tim Whifeld, Collections Manager, will share his knowledge of that amazing collection and explain its critical importance in the twenty-first century. Botanists study these pressed plants, individually and collectively, to establish a history of plant life, often over centuries, because they contain compelling evidence of the ever modulating geographical distribution of plants and evidence of how climate, pests, and other factors have changed species over time.
Group of tickets is reserved for us. Enjoy discounted tickets and attend with your fellow UMRA Members! Time is to be determined.