Randonneurs USA Board of Director Minutes

May 13th, 2026

1. Call to order: The meeting on May 13th, 2026 was called to order at 8:00 p.m. Eastern over Zoom. The following members were present:

   1. Dawn Piech
   1. Charlie Martin
   1. Dave Thompson
   1. Emily O’Brien
   1. Noah Swartz
   1. John Lee Ellis
   1. Chris Argo
2. The minutes of the April Board meeting were approved
3. Dave Thompson and Chris Argo (FAC) confirmed that the March financial report had no issues. Board members had no questions.
4. Dave confirmed that the tax return for 2025 was filed.

5. Charlie Martin presented the Web Team Report

   1. The web team’s progress has been slowed recently due to team members riding
   1. The Web task force has continued to meet and experiment with new website visual treatments utilizing the backup server
   1. RBAs have brought to the web team’s attention validation issues with the submission of team event results. The web team will investigate changing the submission format to accept CSVs which will minimize data loss for RBAs.
   1. Some icons for grand randonees were added
   1. Security updates were made to the site
   1. Dave Thompson continues the effort of validating the elevation of permanents in the permanent library. That project is nearing completion.
   1. Dave Thompson is working with Charlie Martin and John Lee Ellis to manage RUSA Board drive permissions

6. Chris Argo presented the RBA Liaison report

   1. There have not been too many recent questions from RBAs due to them being busy with organizing rides
   1. There has been an inquiry about route re-approval in the case of a missing control
   1. Chris is also interested in investigating how a club can be formed to cover area in South Carolina

7. Noah Swartz presented a report from the Awards Committee

   1. The Awards Committee is finishing up a report on a Ultra 1200 award and will present it to the board soon
   1. The Awards Committee plans to discuss changes to the Rouleur Award following the submission of that report

8. John Lee Ellis presented the Rules Committee Report

   1. A change to the RBA procedures will be made to clarify that brevet routes that are loops may start from an intermediate control
   1. There was some additional discussion about how to handle edge cases and John Lee and Charlie and Dave will work to make sure the RBA procedures are clear on this
   1. There was also a discussion about the rule change to allow post-rides for volunteers. This is expected to go into effect Nov 1st to cover calendar year 2027. Beforehand some things will need to be figured out such as which events are eligible, what we will need to provide to insurance, and what criteria is necessary for allowing RBAs to invoke this provision.
   1. John Lee will present the proposed rules to the board after the Rules Committee drafts and reviews them.

9. Dawn Piech presented the Marketing Team Report

   1. Dawn will have an upcoming call with Bill Bryant as part of the Marketing Team
   1. There is some work for upcoming merch in progress, such as a musette bag, a hat, and a hoodie
   1. Dawn continues to look for volunteers to assist with RUSA marketing
   1. Dawn will chat with some members at large to see if there is any way to co-market Randonneurs to other organizations, Rapha (with their Brevet line of clothing and their recent shared Go-Long challenges.
   1. Dawn will reach out to see if anyone from Minnesota has a contact for Twin Six bikes to see if there is a collaboration opportunity around their Rando bike frame
   1. Dave notes that we should begin the process of creating merch for PBP 2027, which may fall to the soon to be formed Design Committee

10. Dawn presented a report on Between Controls

    1. The Fleche photos that we sought from members received a great response and will be featured in the upcoming issue
    1. Dawn is looking for members with long ridership streaks to talk to on upcoming Rando Radio episodes
    1. Chris Argo and Rob Hawks gave good feedback on RBAs and succession
    1. Upcoming regional highlights for Between Controls will feature Santa Cruz Randonneurs in May. Indiana Randonneurs and New York: Central/Western region will also be highlighted.
    1. Ted Fay continues to help with the Between Controls format and metrics measurement - Dawn and Ted will work on new formats for upcoming issues. Dawn also expressed gratitude to Ted Fay for his assistance in the new format and evolution of Between Controls as well as the rest of the current Between Controls team which consists of Julien Erard, Tony Wittinger, Ted Fay and Bill Bryant.

11. Dawn Piech presented the Bike Expo Survey

    1. The results of the fall 2025 survey have been sent to the board but there was not much to discuss
    1. The board will identify future expos for 2027, but currently there are no upcoming expos planned to be attended by RUSA in 2026
    1. The board hopes to find ways to support RBAs in attending and representing RUSA at smaller events
    1. Dawn expressed she is working on a process that members at large can borrow Randonneurs USA marketing/booth items for events near them to continue to work on our marketing goals

12. Dave Thompson presented an update on the UAF

    1. UAF has updated their website and reporting process and has asked RUSA for certain PII of members in order to uniquely identify them for the purpose of results management
    1. Since Dave and RUSA are not comfortable sharing this PII the board instead discussed ways to create unique identifiers for members based on their RUSA number that can be shared with external organizations
    1. The board was in agreement that this was a good method, and it was mentioned that this would be useful for other organizations, such as LRM, who have had trouble keeping members with the same name distinct.
    1. Charlie Martin mentioned that it would be easy to keep these external identifiers alongside member RUSA number in our own internal database.
    1. Dave Thompson plans to propose this to UAF and will present back to the board what they say

13. Dave Thompson shared an update on the privacy policy

    1. Some discussion was had on what updates need to be made to the privacy policy to cover how we share member data - such as reporting the gender of members when sharing their results with external organizations
    1. There was also some discussion on how often questions come up - such as ‘who is the oldest rider to do x’ - that to answer might share personal info about a rider without their consent
    1. The board was in agreement that even in cases where this could be determined via private information it should not be shared without clear opt-in and consent from the member.

14. Dave presented a discussion about whether the RUSA guidelines should be updated to mention “doping”

    1. The board decided that RUSA was not in a position to police such activity and therefore would not update the guidelines to include a statement, nor would RUSA want to define what does or doesn’t constitute “doping”
    1. The board felt that this was further complicated in the case of RUSA, as opposed to a racing organization like UCI, since our riders are often of a wider variety of ages and fitnesses which may mean certain riders require various forms of medication for health conditions more typical to non-athletes that in an athletic context might be construed as “doping” (e.g. steroids)
    1. The board also does not want riders to feel the need to disclose personal medical information with RUSA or RBAs

15. Noah Swartz presented an update on the Graphics Committee

    1. Noah asked for permission to send out the Designer Survey to seek artist portfolio and rate information to be used for upcoming design projects
    1. Once Noah receives responses he will draft up a committee and budget proposal
    1. The board will also reach out to designers that RUSA has worked with in the past to make sure that they are included in any upcoming efforts

16. Dave Thompson brought up a discussion on the upcoming changed route for the Richmond Clover 1200k

    1. It was discussed whether the proposed name is acceptable
    1. Charlie stressed that any updates should be made and approved ASAP so that the RUSA calendar could be updated and riders could be informed of the changed route
    1. Dave will send out a request for 1200k submissions for 2027

17. Dave gave an update on ACP awards

    1. The process has been slow, but Dave has finally started to get responses from the ACP about awards and hopes that things will speed up in the future
18. June 10th and July 8th are decided on for the next meetings
19. Meeting ended at 9:50pm Eastern