April 14, 2021 Board Minutes

MINUTES OF A MEETING

OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF

RANDONNEURS USA, INC.

 

Held: April 14, 2021

 

A meeting of the RUSA Board of Directors was convened by Zoom/ telephone conference and called to order by the President at 17:04 PST.

The Directors in attendance were:

• Debra Banks

• Dan Driscoll

• John Lee Ellis

• Rob Hawks

• Dawn Piech

• Tim Sullivan

• Dave Thompson

A motion was made and passed to approve the meeting minutes for March 10, 2021

Dan had circulated financial reports consisting of a Statement of Activity YTD Comparison, Statement of Financial Position Comparison, and a 2021 Budget vs. Actual that were reviewed.

Tim reported that a global mediation is scheduled in the litigation for May 27, 2021.

A motion was made and approved to sanction UAF Audax events.

Rob reported on his activities as the RBA liaison. He is starting a trial process of contacting new members in his region and with one other region as a plan to implement a method of connecting new members with RBAs. Presently 3 regions have not calendared 2021 events. There was a brief discussion of whether, post pandemic, a RBA should be required to only hold one event rather that one 200k brevet in order for the region to remain active. ACP events are being submitted to the ACP in batches of two months.

John Lee provided an update on the activities of the web team. This included how to implement one event memberships should it be approved by the Board, Importing results from Boston Montreal Boston for the period of 1988-1998, adding security to the Application Programming Interface (API) and implementing a more comprehensive API that would allow people to view more data in a secure and controlled way, updating the medals and awards displayed on the website, looking at alternative ways of using mailings to members, reviewing the development tasks involved with the sanctioning of Audax rides, and fleshing out Trace functionality. A vote was taken to sort the RBAs on the website by region

John Lee also reported that Eric Walstad has become a new member of the Web Team

The Board approved a revision of the election process in RUSA’s Bylaws. The Bylaws are revised as follows:

On or before October 1st any Board member whose term is expiring and who is eligible to run again shall announce his or her intention to run again and this decision shall be posted on the website with an announcement to the members that nominations are open for the Board. A member may submit his or her name or nominate another member for any open position. Once a member has been nominated they will be notified and will have until October 30th to decide if they want to run and, if so, submit a statement of interest and qualifications as a director in 250 words or less that will be posted on the RUSA website plus a photo.  Nominations will close no later than October 20th. When a person has confirmed that they have accepted the nomination their name will be posted on the RUSA website. With the consent of the person who did the nomination, nominees may also be told who nominated them. The election will commence no later than November 1st and will end on November 30th. Election of Directors will be by secret ballot sent to all members by electronic mail or by electronic means, including a posting on the website. Completed ballots shall be returned or submitted electronically on or before November 30th to an impartial member selected by the Board.

Next was a discussion of how to attract new volunteers. Dan noted that then Advertising Committee consists of only one member and it needs more volunteers if RUSA is going to be able to obtain more advertising for American Randonneur, It was agreed to use various communication avenues, including announcements on the Website, Facebook, Instagram seeking new volunteers with a brief description of what each position entails and a contact person.

Deb said that a committee is still working on Gravel rides and is hopeful or having a proposal for the Board by the May meeting.

Dawn then spoke about sending a monthly breaking enews (“Braking News”). This would be different from American Randonneur and will not supplant the purpose or content of what is in the magazine.

In addition Dawn spoke about communication initiatives. She has looked at RUSA’s present avenues of communicating, Facebook, Instagram the Announcement section of the Website, the RBA list and Perms list. Dawn would like to have a social media influencer who could assist her and is more knowledgeable of how to best use social media platforms. Deb mentioned that RUSA, as a 501c3 corporation, can enroll in Constant Contact an inexpensive electronic mailing program. Dawn will obtain more information and report to the Board next month.

Dawn next spoke about Women’s initiatives and diversity and wants to develop a coalition of women in RUSA. She wants to form a private group of women in randonneuring, audax and ultra-cycling. She will be sending to the RBA list a post asking the RBAs to send out information to women in their region who might be interested in the group.

Dawn will send out a proposed Mission statement for RUSA for the Board to comment.

Dan then discussed the results of the perm audits performed in the first quarter this year. The Board is interested in obtaining the data from the audits so that a reminder can be sent out to members that, like a brevet, riding a permanent requires, members to register for and sign the waiver before the start of the perm, ride to all of the controls and submit the total elapsed time and not the ride time.

The meeting was adjourned at 19:24 PST