Board Annual Goals - 2024 Results

Marketing
Setup a Marketing Committee engaging internally with RBAs and members using surveys and interviews, externally with cycling clubs and organizations, with a broad goal of increasing market awareness, RUSA membership and ridership.

  • Committee established
  • RBA Survey conducted and summary compiled for the Board late in 2024
  • It was clear from the Survey that we do not have a clear Product Definition,  Objectives for a Marketing Committee or correct staffing for the committee. 
  • Work on the charter and staffing of this committee will continue into 2025 and additional initiatives identified 
  • Marketing Committee has assisted with preparation of booth and marketing materials for Philadelphia Bike Expo 2025

Rules and Procedures
Review and update all rules, procedures and other documentation for organizers and riders, for all types of rides e.g. Brevets and Populaires, Team Events, UAF Audax and Permanents

  • Bill and JLE of the Rules Committee have produced new versions of Rules for Riders and Rules for Organizers, which have been approved by the Board. These cover all RUSA event types except for team events and audax (UAF).
  • They are currently revising the RBA Procedures.
  • Dave created a Grand Randonnée Application Google Form.
  • For 2025, complete RBA Procedures, break out event checkpoint time rules into its own document.
  • For 2025, the Team Events Committee and Audax Committee may have a look at their respective rules. 
  • 12/11 – JLE & Bill continue to work on the RBA Procedures and are making good progress, but it is a very large task and it will run through much of 2025.
  • 12/11 – In addition, after the RBA Procedures, JLE & Bill (and Rules Committee) still have to review and revise all the rules for the various team events and the audax events during 2025. (Bill has already worked with the Team Events Committee for their input during the summer of 2024.) 
  • 12/11 – The audax events rules (and other aspects of the program) are in a state of flux; JLE & Bill will assume the task during 2025 to work with the Audax Committee to review and revise. (The UAF itself seems at sea with its cycling program, and this could complicate things on our side of the Atlantic?)
  • 12/11 – During 2024, the Rules Committee incorporated and adapted the new BRM regulation about no timed intermediate controls (except in LRM events by RBA discretion) into our rules, and this was approved by the Board. It was put into numerous sets of regulations and documents. – Done
  • 12/11 – During the second half of 2024, the Rules Committee created, and the Board approved, an update to Article 2 of Rules For Riders to improve bicycle safety on events. – Done

Internal Organization
- Review and update charter and staffing for all Committees

  • Some work on charter and staffing for committees has been completed.  This will carry over into 2025 and will be an ongoing item for the future.  
  • The Charter for the Awards Review Committee needs to be clearly defined and staffing needs review to ensure that the committee has the right tools and expertise to minimize churn.

- Calendar all operational activities

  • Completed in 2024 and will be an ongoing item for the future.

- Setup a Nominating Committee for Succession Planning

  • The Board concluded that its direct involvement in nominations for the RUSA election should be minimal.  

Event Registration Support and Insurance
- Share tools and approaches across regions

- Develop a plan to provide a common toolset and centrally house all waivers

  • A zoom was held among users of RideStats with many transitioning off by year end.
  • Additional regions implemented Smartwaiver during 2024.  
  • This is an ongoing project in 2025.

Awards
- Physical Gravel Award

  • Carry-over to 2025.

- Volunteer Recognition: 

  • Patches were sent to all RBAs and listed committee members to thank them for their work in 2024 and a supply of patches sent to RBAs for their local volunteers.
  • The 2024-dated patch will be updated for 2025

- Climbing

  • Carry-over to 2025

Website

- Facilitate the rollout of gravel Permanents

  • Done

- Facilitate the development and tracking of cumulative climbing

  • WIP, carry-over to 2025. Process, tools, and reporting are partially in place for managing events data. Tool created for RBA self-serve elevation assignment. Need process and tooling to handle outliers like Alaska. Need to handle point-to-point routes.

- Increase website account adoption for priority functions

  • Carry-over to 2025. Identified a subset of functionality that would benefit from authentication. Most members now have unique email addresses as a result of our 2024 effort, which is a prerequisite for creating website accounts. Implementation will be deferred until a few months into 2025, after a lot of the annual renewal rush has subsided.

- Improve membership signup, renewal and data change overhead

  • Carry-over to 2025.

- Data change overhead: proof-of-concept for reducing admin overhead from no-op address "updates". Blocked on feedback from membership committee.

  • Streamlined workflows discussed for renewals that meet certain criteria.

- Develop election tool for RUSA elections

  • Decided to go with Election Buddy, and RUSA will stay with Election Buddy indefinitely going forward.

- Revisit gender data collection and reporting

  • Pending requirements, carry-over to 2025. Numerous ongoing discussions with membership and a subcommittee throughout the year. Gender survey sent out to membership, with ongoing analysis. Nearly all implementation is on hold until RUSA moves various functionality behind authentication.

- Explore and potentially overhaul RUSA's privacy practices

  • WIP, carry-over to 2025. Added privacy enhancements for hiding contact info for perm contributors. Ongoing work to:
    • Enhance the volunteer listings and hide individual contact information where it's not needed.
    • Move most individual contact information behind authentication.
    • Move membership settings behind authentication and add secure privacy controls for public-facing data.

- Historical total membership reporting

  • Done. Created a fine-grained analysis of per-day active RUSA membership using member change history, dating back to when RUSA first started collecting data. Analysis includes breakdowns by demographics data. Due to flaws in RUSA data, this still requires manual analysis and cleanup any time we want to perform this analysis in the future.