Randonneurs USA Board of Director Minutes

July 14th, 2026

1. Call to order: The meeting on July 14th, 2026 was called to order at 8:00 p.m. Eastern over Zoom. The following members were present:
   
   1. Dawn Piech
   2. Charlie Martin
   3. Dave Thompson
   4. Emily O’Brien
   5. Noah Swartz
   6. John Lee Ellis
   7. Chris Argo
2. The minutes of the June Board meeting were approved
3. The June financial report was presented by Dave Thompson.
4. Charlie Martin presented the Web Team report.
   
   1. Improvements have been made to the tools for RBAs
   2. The web team has been prototyping different ways to visually present grand randonnées on the website front page
   3. Charlie has been testing the changes to the member services workflow and hopes to roll them out soon
5. Chris Argo gave the RBA Liaison report. 
   
   1. Chris noted that the RUSA site links to the old RBA application PDF rather than the current google form. Chris has directly linked the form to an interested incoming RBA and should expect to see an application soon.
   2. Chris has been working with Dragi to find a protocol for route approval to better collaborate with the routes committee
   3. Chris brought up the topic of what to do with unresponsive RBAs and how the board should approach this situation.
   4. Rob Hawks has announced his intent to retire as CA: San Francisco RBA at the end of 2027, the board looks forward to seeing who announced their intent to carry on RBA responsibilities for the San Francisco region. Rob is planning to assist with the transition by maintaining some responsibilities during 2027, and plans to continue with his current RUSA responsibilities.
6. Noah Swartz presented an update on the Awards Review Committee
   
   1. The specifics of the new 12,000k award have been ironed out over email although the name and some details still need to be decided upon.
   2. Previously Charlie Martin had shared a doc with the board and awards committee about the current success and accessibility of the Rouleur award. The board discussed this at length focusing on the matter of accessibility and whether it was succeeding in targeting new members looking for a first award to chase. The board agreed that they were interested in pursuing a change that Permanents can replace some amount of required rides for the award. There was also discussion over whether there should be a nationally offered alternative for the team event requirement or whether the team event should be dropped from the award requirements. No workable alternative could be agreed upon for regions that lacked team event availability. The board agreed to continue to flesh this out over email with the assistance of the awards committee and that any changes wouldn’t take effect until 2027.
   3. A motion was made and passed to allow permanents to substitute for some amount of the Rouleur's distance qualifiers starting in 2027.
   4. A motion was made and passed to remove the team event qualifier from the Rouleur starting in 2027.
   5. The Board and Awards Review will have a joint discussion to resolve any outstanding issues.
7. Chris Argo provided an update on the RBA round table
   
   1. Chris is planning to schedule the first round table for 2 weeks from the date of the board meeting, focusing on scheduling especially for the upcoming PBP year. Chris welcomes any feedback from the rest of the board and will present back on how it went.
8. Dave Thompson presented on the continued issues with fixing permissions for the RUSA google groups.
   
   1. In order to prevent future lost access to RUSA accounts and groups, Dave has added a RUSA admin account as owner of all RUSA groups.
   2. It was noted that this might have some unintended consequences for who would be able to read the communications in certain sub groups, it was agreed that Dave would find a way to disclose this group permissions change.
   3. Additionally some messages have been getting lost on their way to board members, Dave will follow up to try to fix this.
9. Noah Swartz presented on Graphics committee
   
   1. Many wonderful designers have filled out our call for artists form. We have so many talented members and friends.
   2. Noah asked for advice on how to use this information to create a proposal for the board.
   3. It was recommended to look at past goods needs that the board approved and to use that to propose some necessary designs and projects for the future year.
   4. Noah will work with Dawn to finalize a proposal and bring it to the board.
10.  Dave Thompson presented on a current proposal for PBP Drop Bags
    
    1. Dave brought the question to the board whether it was worthwhile to provide a drop bag offering to RUSA members attending PBP and whether the format of this proposal would be enticing to riders.
    2. Dave brought up the question of using RUSAs 501(c)(3) status to collect money on behalf of the bag drop team, and whether this would open RUSA up to legal liability in the event of an accident or other issue.
    3. A lot of discussion was had about how severe of a risk this was and the board’s appetite to accept this risk. Due to time constraints this conversation wasn’t resolved but at least a few members voiced that they were averse to taking on legal liability on behalf of RUSA with no clear avenue to cover this risk with RUSA’s existing insurance.
11. Emily has designed volunteer patches to deliver to volunteers for local clubs, Dave will order them.
12. There was some discussion about the scheduling of upcoming board meetings so that all members can attend and what will happen to certain responsibilities if the full board cannot attend future meetings. This will be finalized over email.
13. The meeting adjourned at 10pm Eastern.