MINUTES OF A MEETING

OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF

 RANDONNEURS USA, INC.

Held: March 9, 2022

A meeting of the RUSA Board of Directors was convened by Zoom/ telephone conference and called to order by the President at 17:06 PST.

The Directors in attendance were:

• Dan Driscoll

• Rob Hawks

• Charlie Martin

• Vincent (Vinny) Muoneke

• Dawn Piech

• Tim Sullivan

• Dave Thompson

Dave started the meeting discussing Board protocol. He had previously circulated a document containing four topics: 1) A Statement of Values and Responsibilities for members, volunteers, and riders; 2) Protocols for group and social media behavior; 3) RBA financial management guidelines; and 4) RBA Procedures for Rider Penalty Guidelines. The Board discussed whether these topics should be pursued. Dave then discussed the past months Board email exchanges regarding the implementation of a new award.

Rob, as the RBA liaison will review and comment on the RBA Procedures for Rider Penalty Guidelines. The RBA financial management guidelines is subject to the survey Rob is conducting on what regions are incorporated.

The group and social media behavior was included in the RUSA Google list that Charlie implemented.

Vinny will review the Statement of Values and Responsibilities and make recommendations to the Board on whether and how to implement some of the suggested provisions.

Regarding the implementation of a new award Rob suggested a moratorium on any new awards to determine who in RUSA wants awards and the context of any award. Dan stated his belief that every award appeals to at least some members. Other Board members were not supportive of a moratorium on new awards but instead the Board decided to survey members with a questionnaire to gauge members' interest in awards.  Dawn suggested using Between Controls to produce a questionnaire. Dawn will prepare a draft of a questionnaire for the April issue of Between Controls that she will send to the Board for comments and review. The discussion of a new award arose from a new award that Dan had proposed that he named the Apex award that would include a member doing a 1200, a SR600 and either another 1200 or SR600 over a two year period.

Dan is working on the monthly financial reports and had provided the Board with the balances in RUSA’s accounts.

Rob reported on his activities as the RBA liaison. He is still collecting data on whether regions or clubs are incorporated. The plan is to develop an advocacy plan for regions to incorporate with RUSA providing guidance on the process. Rob has discussed with Dave on creating a best practices document for RBAs. Rob is still waiting to receive RBA applications for the two regions where the RBA has announced he is resigning at the end of the year and there has been a designated replacement.

Charlie Martin presented a written report prepared by John Lee Ellis and Charlie on the activities of the Web Team. Charlie is making progress against the Web Team's detailed task plan for the gravel program. Until the results submission report for gravel is complete a work around has been created. There was a performance problem displaying the list of perm program registrations that has been fixed by Paul Lieberman. Man-Fai is investigating if it is feasible for the main program to access member photos. Charlie has added icons for many of the Grand Randonnees and updated members’ results to display them. The formula to determine routes to calendar was inconsistent across different parts of the site. An ad hoc team recommended that the distance range for route candidates be a formula of plus or minus 25 km of the events calendared distance which will make it easier to use RBA Self Service. Man-Fai fixed a missing validation of the Calendar Submission tool.  A good number of Bugzilla issues have been scrubbed.

Dawn had provided reports on the February issue of Between Controls.  The issue was sent to 2,692 members with an excellent 70% open rate and a 15% click rate. The top 3 areas that received clicks were the extra PBP seminar YouTube video with Bill Bryant and Rob (18.1% with 105 clicks), the RUSA store (11.9% with 69 clicks), and the Rouleur article (11.4% with 66 clicks). The EliptiGO ad received 11 clicks. The March edition will be sent on March 10, 2022. Dawn is thinking that for the July anniversary edition of Between Controls of a raffle for members who open the issue and answer a survey. She is considering other ideas to celebrate the one year anniversary. Dawn is in communication with Ben Everett regarding the RUSA Instagram group and thanked Charlie for implementing the RUSA Google list. She is looking into creating a RUSA Strava group. Dawn will report on the communication survey that she sent to the RBAs at the April Board meeting.

Dave has received some contact from individuals who have expressed an interest in succeeding Janice Chernekoff as editor of American Randonneur. He will be providing information to the Board once he has more information.

Dave circulated an email on March 7, 2022 that summarized the 2022 goals that the Board had previously discussed. He asked each Board member to review the goals and make comments to the summary. Then the summary will be sent to the RBAs for their comments.

A renewal notice had been sent to those people who did not renew their membership.

Dan reached an agreement with Voler to produce jerseys and other cycling clothes for RUSA and regions. He sent to the RBAs the terms and the ordering process. He stated that some RBAs were ordering from Voler. There was a discussion of creating a new RUSA national jersey by this summer and before 2023 and the production of a RUSA PBP jersey.

Dan is still looking for a graphic design volunteer.

The meeting was adjourned at 19:00 PDT.