Randonneurs USA Board of Director Minutes
May 12, 2025
- Call to order: The meeting on May 12, 2025 was called to order at 8:03 p.m. Eastern time, over Zoom. The following members were present.
- Bill Bryant
- Dawn Piech
- Charlie Martin
- Chris Argo
- Gardner Duvall
- Dave Thompson
- John Lee Ellis
- The minutes of the April 2025 Board meeting were approved.
- The Treasurer submitted a written report for April.
- Gardner reported that the Financial Audit Committee received the April Treasurer’s Report shortly before the Board meeting, and had not taken action on it.
- Chris made the RBA-L report. The RBA for FL:Southern is still looking for a successor. Chris’ RBA “town hall” meeting for May 15 was postponed to May 22. A motion carried to appoint Will Sherman as RBA for NY:Long Island.
- The Web Team submitted a written report. The team fixed a bug concerning team gravel events. They are examining a usability issue where permanent riders think they need to cancel their registration when they could simply reload the page.
- Dawn reported that the Board had received the April report concerning member engagement with Between Controls. The April BC achieved an 80% open rate. We have 180 new followers on YouTube. Dawn intends to expand BC with more member interviews and discussed a fall zoom with members of the Between Control team to continue to refine Between Controls. She also discussed a zoom in the fall with Ben Everett and Lisa Charlebois to work on more coordination and frequency of Instagram posts.
- There was an extensive discussion about how RUSA collects, uses, and displays gender information. The Board plans to communicate with members its decisions concerning:
- Self-identification options for RUSA members: Man/Woman/Non-Binary/Decline to State;
- The eventual decision about whether to allow the display of gender designations in award listings;
- Expanding gender classifications in the demographics report while preserving member privacy in the process.
The Board plans to engage the member-composed consultation group to review and comment on the communication before public release.
- There was a further discussion about implementing an “age” checkbox for adults on RUSA waivers, and the use of DOB on waivers for minors as required by SmartWaiver technology.
- The succession of the editor of American Randonneur was discussed. Dave will reach out to several larger clubs to see if the skills and interest in taking on the role can be identified among their members; any interested member anywhere should reach out to Dave.
- There was a discussion about following the lead of several nations that allow worker rides to take place after the date of a brevet. ACP informally allows worker rides two weeks before or after a brevet, and intends to make that more formal. RUSA needs to timely report ridership to its insurer, with data derived from results entered into RUSA’s database; this has implications for worker rides after a brevet. The matter was referred to the Rules Committee.
- A proposal has circulated to standardize route submission across brevets, populaires, and permanents. This would require the use of electronic mapping software like RWGPS, which is not universally used for brevet submission. Standardization has many advantages, but the Board intends to address the concerns of brevet submitters who are not using electronic mapping software. John Lee objected to requiring a sole source for electronic mapping software.
- Gardner reported about a subpoena that was attempted to be served on RUSA concerning a lawsuit that a rider brought against a driver.
- Audax Japan reached out to RUSA for video contributions to a presentation Audax Japan is making to celebrate its 20th anniversary. The plan is to obtain some video for Chris to edit for the use of Audax Japan.
- The next meeting has been scheduled for June 18, 2025, and a meeting was set for July 9, 2025.
- Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 9:52 Eastern time, without objection.