From time to time, situations arise where a RUSA member has participated in a RUSA event and, owing to reasons recognizably beyond his or her control, has not met the criteria for completion of the event.  Occasionally, the RUSA Board of Directors has been asked to waive the criteria for completion.  In some of these thankfully rare instances, the reasons preventing participants from completing the event have been heart wrenching to consider. 

Over the years, RUSA has matched its membership growth with newly designed events and awards which encourage participation on all levels. RUSA now has an expansive list of events and awards on offer.  Consistent with the traditional ACP core events of 200, 300, 400 and 600km brevets used to qualify for Paris-Brest-Paris, all new events - for example permanents and populaires - and their related awards have clear requirements for route design and for completion. For example, a populaire route must be between 100km and 199km long, and has straightforward criteria for achieving completion: complete the entire route as designed within the time limits calculated for all controls.

One of the fundamental concepts behind the rules and criteria is that they apply to everyone in the same way.  When responding to requests to waive the criteria, the board needs to be consistent with responses from past boards, and to consider all the other participants that have met the completion requirements. To do otherwise would almost certainly mean that more than one set of criteria has been applied.   Additionally, there is the problem of where to fairly draw the new line to determine what exceptions are valid, which in the end would simply redefine the group of participants who would have come heart-breakingly close to meeting the new criteria but would in the end fall short of that.

Therefore, the board has reached the conclusion that it can not waive the fundamental requirement that a route must be completed to earn credit for the event.  We do not support rule changes that would give partial completion for distance completed prior to a DNF, regardless of the extenuating circumstance that prevented completion. Similarly, the board does not support rule changes that would allow awards to be granted without completion of all of the events required to earn the award.   We understand that this decision may have the unfortunate consequence of preventing or postponing a member's pursuit of a RUSA award, and we regret and empathize with the disappointment that will inevitably be the result.  

Rob Hawks, President-Randonneurs USA, for the Board of Directors

Two positions on the RUSA Board of Directors will become available at the end of the year. Members may nominate two current RUSA members to run for those two positions.

Additionally, RBAs may nominate an RBA for the position of RBA Liaison.

A nomination form is included in the Fall 2016 issue of the American Randonneur, or is available here.

Email nominations to president@rusa.org or mail this form to:
Rob Hawks, 5630 Santa Cruz Ave. Richmond, CA 94804

Nominations must be received by September 23, 2016.

The all-volunteer RUSA Website Committee is looking for a new member with a strong Perl background, who is interested in building a new REST API on top of MySQL in NodeJS. RUSA maintains its own website and database and is embarking on new enhancements. Please help us move the site forward!

In addition to the skill set listed above, potential new committee members must be RUSA members. Contact webmaster@rusa.org.

Results submission for all brevets and permanents is now operational.

Results submission for Team Events (Fleche, Dart, and Arrow events) is not yet ready for use.  Expected completion is by the end of August/early September.

Results submission for SR 600 permanents is also not yet ready.

When Team Events and SR 600 results submission is ready for use, there will be an announcement here and on the RBA list.

New RUSA LOGO
 
Calling all graphic design-minded randonneurs! 
 
We are looking for submissions from the community for a new RUSA logo. 
 
The parameters for the new logo must convey/include:
1. Our name, Randonneurs USA.
2. It needs to communicate that we are a long distance cycling organization, and 
3. That we are from the USA (so that anyone from the larger randonneuring community would understand that they were seeing the American logo).
4. Use up to 3 colors + black & white.
 
Electronic only submissions (in .pdf form) must sent into Debra Banks (Banksdebra@gmail.com) by August 1, 2016.
 
We hope to have a finished logo by the end of the year.

RUSA's Mondial award, and later the Galaxy award were conceived as a way to acknowledge members who had completed what at the time might have been considered a lifetime's worth of cumulative event distances.

In our organization's early years there were fewer regions offering fewer events, thus accumulating the kilometers equaling the Earth's circumference, and even further, accumulating 100,000 kilometers, was more challenging, because riders lacked opportunities.  With many more regions offering far more events, coupled with the increasingly popular Permanent program, members are reaching those 'lifetime' totals in far greater numbers and much more quickly.

With the awards' cost being subsidized by RUSA, they have grown to be a much larger part of RUSA's annual budget. Alas, the time has come for these two awards, the Mondial and the Galaxy, to be in line with the other awards offered by RUSA, and have them pay for themselves, which will allow the RUSA store to be self-sustaining. Going forward, RUSA members will still automatically be recognized when they reach these milestones and may then purchase the award through the RUSA Store.

RUSA is pleased to announce that Vincent Muoneke is the recipient of the 2015 American Randonneur Award. Read the article in the current issue of American Randonneur.

Congratulations Vinny!

Brevet results submission is offline while changes required by RUSA's new insurance scheme are incorporated.  The announcement will be made here and on the RBA list when it is again available.  We thank you for your patience.

Permanent results submission IS available.

NOTE: It is not working with the Internet Explorer browser.  No problems have been reported with other browsers.  We recommend using Chrome, Firefox, or Safari to submit your permanent results.

This IE issue should now be resolved. If the submit button break again please re-open /bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=44

Randonneurs USA is sad to report the passing of founding RUSA member # 346, Victor Gallo, of Melbourne Beach, Florida.

 Victor was 84, a member of the Spacecoast Freewheelers and a very accomplished, and respected long-distance cyclist.

We send our condolences to his wife Gladys, and his family.

RUSA's governing body is pleased to announce the list of officers for 2016. The election was held during a board meeting in January:

• President — Rob Hawks. Hawks, the RBA for the San Francisco region, was elected as president.
• Vice President — John Lee Ellis. Ellis, the RBA for the Boulder region, was elected as vice-president.
• Treasurer — Susan Otcenas. Otcenas, a Desert River Randonneurs member, was re-elected as treasurer.
• Secretary — Lynne Fitzsimmons. Fitzsimmons, an Oregon Randonneurs member, was elected as secretary.

The 2016 board will be comprised of Deb Banks, John Lee Ellis, Lynne Fitzsimmons, Rob Hawks, Spencer Klaassen (RBA-Liaison), Susan Otcenas, and Mark Thomas.

The board extends its sincere appreciation to departing Board members Mike Dayton and Bill Beck, for their many years of service.