MINUTES OF A MEETING

OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF

RANDONNEURS USA, INC.

Held: July 13, 2022

A meeting of the RUSA Board of Directors was convened by Zoom / telephone conference and called to order by the President at 17:02 PDT.

The Directors in attendance were:

• Dan Driscoll
• Rob Hawks
• Charlie Martin
• Vincent (Vinny) Muoneke
• Dawn Piech
• Tim Sullivan
• Dave Thompson

A motion was made and passed to approve the meeting minutes for June 14, 2022.

A motion was made and passed to shelve the short-term / reduced cost memberships initiative.

A motion was made and passed to approve the Colorado Front Range 1200 application.

A motion was made and passed to approve Luke Heller as the new RBA of NC: Asheville.

A motion was made and passed to approve Emily Ranson as the new RBA of MD: Capital.

The Board discussed events that transpired during the Cascade 1400. Some rules and best practice questions arose that will be explored in subsequent discussion over the next month.

Treasurer reports for this past month are still in progress. Dan will work on wrapping that up.

Dan is working on a new national jersey. Ali Holt, an artist in Canada, did 3 rounds of a jersey design. Patrick Chin-Hong has been circulating jersey ideas on Facebook. Mike created 4 designs. Dave suggested the possibility of putting up the national jersey used in the past, then working on a PBP jersey this fall, and then working on a new national jersey afterward. Dan and Vinny will send the existing jersey designs to the board for further discussion.

Rob, as RBA Liaison, provided the Board with a written report. Luke Heller applied to replace Ian Hands as RBA of NC: Asheville. Emily Ranson applied to replace Gardner Duvall as RBA of MD: Capital. The OR: Northeastern region has shut down. PA: Eastern is transitioning RBAs on October 1st. FL: Northeast is still getting set up. New RBAs Dan Blumberg, Mark Denin, and Ken Moss have reported successful seasons.

Rob, as Brevet Coordinator, provided the Board with a written report. RUSA will be interfacing with a different person for flèche results since Sophie Matter is no longer handling that. Roland is transitioning a number of tasks over to Rob. In many cases Roland had personal scripts to help process RUSA data, and it may be necessary to explore new workflows for these tasks, possibly with assistance from the Web Team. Due to anticipated load with ACP results processing, Rob has reached out to a candidate to join the Brevet Coordinator team.

Rob supplemented his written reports with updates. One region is navigating a potential RBA replacement due to the current one having become unresponsive. CO: Boulder has submitted its application (approved earlier in this meeting) to run the Colorado Front Range 1200 next year. TX: Austin intends to run a 1200 next year, and Rob will follow up to ensure the application is received in a timely manner. Dan suggests encouraging more than two grand randonnées in 2023 in order to relieve the load on the current proposed ones and to spread them out during otherwise busier years.

Charlie presented a written report prepared by John Lee Ellis on the activities of the Web Team. Website work is slow at the moment because it's summer and team members are riding bikes. Staged gravel functionality will be rolled out along with introductory gravel program content on the website. Results submission reminders to RBAs continues to be a high priority feature request, once there are available resources. There may be some ways that the website could better organize the status of results that require submission to external organization (e.g. ACP, LRM, and UAF), and the Web Team awaits further feedback. The team is still responding to incoming bugs and addressing low-hanging fruit.

Dawn had provided reports on the June issue of Between Controls. This was the one-year anniversary of Between Controls. The issue was sent to 3,571 members with a 66.4% open rate and a 10.1% click rate. The top 3 areas that received clicks were the backpacking self-supported article (50.8% with 222 clicks), the committee search page (11.4% with 50 clicks), and the event search page (10.1% with 44 clicks). The Board 2022 Strategic Goals received 12 clicks and the Board meeting minutes received 10 clicks. The July edition will be sent on July 18, 2022. Dawn will meet with Constant Contact to get consultation on how to further improve Between Controls.

Tim presented the status of the RUSA promo video project. He reached an agreement of terms with Garrett Berkey, but needs to figure out the payment schedule. Garrett will be busy through the rest of the year but could start work in January. Some collaboration will be necessary, and Tim will follow up to determine what steps RUSA needs to take. It may involve some narration or an outline of the video. The next issue of Between Controls could solicit a volunteer with video expertise to assist.

The Awards Review Committee provided a report of 2022 award proposals and recommendations on June 20, 2022. The report summarized and incorporated feedback from the awards survey that was sent out to RUSA members. Four awards were discussed: lifetime gravel distance awards to complement the gravel program, "Explorer" extensions to the existing P-12 and R-12 awards which focus on completion of unique routes, an Ultra Flèche for completion of 10 flèche events, and the Apex award for inspiring riders to ride SR600 events. The committee recommended adoption of the gravel distance awards, R-12 Explorer and P-12 Explorer, and the Ultra Flèche. The committee recommended future adoption of the Apex or some other climbing-based award.

The Board revisited a decision from 2021 to adopt at most one new award each year in order to relieve downstream volunteer pressure. One thought was that some awards proposals could avoid immediate burden on volunteers by approving the award but allowing downstream work to be shelved until volunteers such as the Web Team prioritized the implementation on their own schedule. Some awards additionally could be "virtual only" by nature of not having an associated trinket that would require volunteer load to manage.

The Board discussed and iterated on a multi-tier gravel distance award proposal, originally envisaged as part of the gravel program. The award is based on lifetime accumulated gravel distance, with tiers at 100 km, 500 km, 1,000 km, and 3,000 km. Upon reaching the 3,000 km tier, members will be able to repeat it to stack the award. Patches would be awarded for the 100 km through 1,000 km tiers, and a cup would be awarded for the 3,000 km tier. A motion was made and passed to approve this award.

The Board discussed and iterated on the P-12 and R-12 Explorer awards, proposed by Spencer Klaassen. The awards would follow the same structure as the P-12 and R-12 awards, but require that each ride be a unique route or a calendared event. These would essentially be extensions to the existing awards, and would not have their own trinkets associated with them. Instead the Explorer distinction would be recognized in awards listings and in individual member results pages. A motion was made and passed to approve these award extensions.

The Board deferred discussion of the Apex and Ultra Flèche awards to email and/or the next meeting.

The next scheduled meeting is on Monday, August 22, 2022. The meeting concluded at 19:03 PDT.