MINUTES OF A MEETING
OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF
RANDONNEURS USA, INC.
Held: September 20, 2021
A meeting of the RUSA Board of Directors was convened by Zoom/ telephone conference and called to order by the President at 17:07 PDT.
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 August 17, 2021.
Dan had circulated financial reports consisting of a Statement of Activity YTD Comparison and a Statement of Financial Position Comparison that were reviewed.
The Board then discussed the 2022 budget. One of the topics was the amount of funds that RUSA should retain as a reserve. Dave had sent out projections of 2022 annual expenses. Based on that the Board discussed whether or not any fees can be decreased or if they should be maintained in order to ensure that RUSA has sufficient reserves for unexpected expenses. After discussion Dave will present different projections for the Board to review prior to the October meeting.
Regarding the litigation, Tim reported that a hearing will be held to appoint a guardian ad litem for the minor Romo child so that the guardian can sign the settlement agreement on behalf of the minor.
Rob reported on his actions as the RBA Liaison. He had a virtual onboarding meeting with 2 new RBAs, John Sprock and Ken Moss. So far 17 regions have submitted a 2022 ACP calendar.
Rob has sent a request to the Web team to create a drop box listing of regions from which a new member when joining RUSA can request to be contacted by email from the RBAs of selected regions.
There was then discussion on the current issue of American Randonneur being available to members from the members website account when the issue is published.
Rob will be deactivating club codes for any clubs that do not have an active RUSA member.
John Lee provided a written report on the activities of the Web Team. The report included Audax support with a feature allowing calendaring of Audax events using the front-end calendaring tool, RUSA Rouleur Award support including an awardee page and link to the Store for the Rouleur patch, preparing to link the 2022 Grand Randonnées on the home page, adding a Can-Am trophy image on rider’s results, possibly placing onto the rider’s results a trophy for those who have been chosen to receive the American Randonneur Award and also recognizing those who are RUSA volunteers with an appropriate trophy, ACP SR recognition is now shown on individual results pages for those who qualified using foreign events, and creating a block on the home page for a link to issues of Between the Controls.
Dawn had sent a report on her activities as the Incident Liaison, the development of a mission values statement and women’s initiatives/membership diversity. She reported that Ben Everette is interested in volunteering to assist with social media/communication and to moderate the Instagram account. She then discussed the August issuance of Between the Controls e-newsletter. It was sent to 3020 members and was opened by 55% of the recipients. 65.4% used a desktop device and 34.6% used a mobile device. The top 4 categories clicked were the RUSA store at 24.1%, RUSA results at 20.3%, RUSA events at 19.2% and Gravel Google Document at 14.1%. Dawn has the next edition of Between the Controls ready to be sent in the next two days.
The ACP has announced that there will be a 300 km centenary ride on June 11, 2022. ACP has set a deadline of September 30, 2021 to order medals. Rob will send a note to the RBAs to remind them to submit the 2022 ACP calendar and also ask if they will be holding a centenary 300 km on June 11, 2022 and if so whether the RBA has a rough estimate on now many members may ride. Next week we will then order the medals.
Dan discussed co-marketing and the need for Board members to think of different ways RUSA can market with other organizations and groups. His recent article in American Randonneur on comparing RUSA to the World UltraCycling Association was one example. The article is also posted on the website of the World UltraCycling Association.
Deb provided a written report on incorporating gravel riding/routes into RUSA. She has formed a gravel committee comprised of Dawn, Rob, John Lee, Greg Smith, Rob Welsh and herself. She provided a report summarizing comments to the gravel question posted in Between the Controls. There were 90 responses: 74 members stated that they would like to ride more RUSA gravel routes for ride credit. Many of the member’s points dealt with the length of the routes, awards, extra time for the rides, the safety of not riding on paved roads, and gaining and retaining members. The gravel committee will work with the parameters provided by the Board and the members input from the gravel survey to develop the gravel program.
Tim reported that the only current time deadline for the upcoming Board elections is for Rob to announce by September 30, 2021 whether he will run again as the RBA liaison. Johnny Bertrand has agreed to serve as the election monitor. A special election edition of Between the Controls will be sent on or about September 30, 2021. Dave will post on Facebook a notice that nominations are open and the web team will post an announcement on the home page.
The meeting was adjourned at 19:29 PDT