MINUTES OF A MEETING
OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF
RANDONNEURS USA, INC.
Held: August 17, 2021
A meeting of the RUSA Board of Directors was convened by Zoom/ telephone conference and called to order by the President at 17:10 PDT.
The Directors in attendance were:
• Debra Banks
• Dan Driscoll
• John Lee Ellis
• Rob Hawks
• Dawn Piech
• Tim Sullivan
• Dave Thompson
The following e-votes were approved:
Manual distribution of centenary medals and allowing members to purchase a BRM medal while receiving centenary medal;
Approval of John Sprock as the new RBA for Virginia - Tidewater
Approval of Ken Moss as the RBA for Utah – Salt Lake
A motion was made and passed to approve the meeting minutes for July 6, 2021.
Dan had circulated financial reports consisting of a Statement of Activity YTD Comparison and a Statement of Financial Position Comparison that were reviewed.
Regarding the litigation, Tim reported that we are waiting for the final settlement agreements.
Rob reported on his actions as the RBA Liaison. He had a virtual onboarding meeting with 5 new RBAs. He will do another virtual meeting with the 2 new RBAs, John Sprock and Ken Moss. John Sprock will take over as the RBA after Keith Sutton holds a centenary brevet on September 11th. Ken Moss will take over as the RBA after Richard Stum holds a brevet this weekend. So far 3 regions have submitted a 2022 ACP calendar. RBAs will not be able to add ACP events in 2022 after the initial calendar is submitted.
John Lee provided a written report on the activities of the Web Team. Charlie Martin has made good progress on the calendaring of Audax events and for the submission of results so that it will be functional for the 2022 season. The Web Team is continuing to backfill data to support award applications. Most features are working for support of Trace events. Charlie Martin added the trophy case feature for displaying a member’s results. The team reviewed new optional columns in the ACP’s results spreadsheet. There was discussion of adding a link to the region’s website when submitting the ACP calendar so that an interested rider would be able to look at the region’s website to obtain information on a calendared event.
Dan had provided a report on the permanent audit committee. The committee has not found any issues that need to be brought to the attention of the Board. The committee will continue to do audits until the end of this year.
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 then discussed the initial issuance of the Between the Controls e-newsletter. It was sent to 2954 members and was opened by 58% of the recipients. 63.55% used a desktop device and 36.5% used a mobile device. The top 3 categories selected were the RUSA calendar at 36.1%, the Rando Scout award at 25.1% and the centenary ride link to Bill Bryant’s article at 25.1% Dawn has the next edition of Between the Controls ready to be sent on August 18, 2021. Deb suggested that approximately 3 days later placing a Facebook post with a link to Between Controls. .
Dave reported that all 300 medals for the centenary brevets reserved for RBAs have been sold.
The Board has approved that for this year only if someone becomes a member in September 2021 the membership fee will also include 2022. Dave will prepare a message to be sent via MailChimp to past due members inviting them to renew their expired membership.
Deb provided a written report on incorporating gravel riding/routes into RUSA. She cited 3 areas that need to be addressed further: time allowed to complete a gravel ride, should gravel rides be their own category, and the formation of a committee to expand on the ideas raised in her report. There was much discussion on whether any extra time should be allowed for a gravel ride and if so how is it to be determined. Her report included her idea of a formula to add additional time based on the amount of gravel sections in the route.
After discussion a motion was passed to incorporate gravel rides into RUSA and to form a committee to provide a plan to implement the rides. Deb, John Lee and Dawn will be members of the committee and Deb will contact at least 2 other members to see if they would be interested in joining the committee.
Tim reported that the only 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.
The Board then discussed the implementation of a new award proposed by Bill Bryant that he named the Super Rouleur Award. Bill’s written presentation was reviewed by the Awards Committee that provided a report on June 6, 2021. The Award requirements as recommended by the Awards Committee are completion of the following in a calendar year:
a 100-124 km populaire
a 125-149 km populaire
a 150-199 km populaire
a 200-220 km brevet, and
an 8 hour Dart of 120 km or longer with at least 3 team members completing the ride.
Permanents and foreign events do not qualify and longer rides cannot be substituted for a shorter ride.
The Board approved the Award renaming it the “RUSA Rouleur Award”. A member can earn one award a calendar year for rides entirely on roads and another award for gravel rides conducted in a calendar year.
There was then a discussion of the 2022 budget. Lois Springsteen has been asked to prepare an estimated expenses based on the 2019 actual expenses. Then Dave and Dan will review it and projected income analyzing various revenue options that were discussed by the Board.
The next Board meeting will be held on September 20, 2021.
The meeting was adjourned at 19:03 PDT