MINUTES OF A MEETING

OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF

RANDONNEURS USA, INC.

Held: November 9, 2022

A meeting of the RUSA Board of Directors was convened by Zoom / telephone conference and called to order by the President at 17:04 PST.

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 August 22, 2022.

A motion was made and passed to approve the delegation of the task of ultra awards formulation to the Awards Review Committee and the Web Team. These teams would determine which awards warrant an ultra variation and report back to the Board with a plan. New ultra awards resulting from this would initially have no trinket. New award proposals going forward will specify whether or not there should be an ultra version.

A motion was made and passed to approve the 2023 RUSA budget, including the elimination of event fees in 2023 and the reduction of the annual permanents fee to $10.00.

A motion was made and passed to approve sections 1-3 of the Board Covenant from September 19.

A motion was made and passed to approve RUSA's participation in solidarity events with Ukraine. RUSA would contribute financially by donating event fees to Ukraine. Rob Welsh is approved as the primary coordinator, working with Rob Hawks and the RBAs.

A motion was made and passed to approve RUSA's insurance renewal for 2023 with the McKay Group.

A motion was made and passed to approve the 2023 RUSA calendar.

Tim, as Treasurer, provided the Board with monthly Statement of Activity Year to Date Comparison reports and Financial Position Comparison reports for September and October. Tim also noted that membership fees are kicking in, and RUSA will have a positive cash flow for the next several months as a result.

Rob had shared written reports on his activities as RBA liaison and brevet coordinator. IA: Central will be transitioning RBAs, and all materials have been received from outgoing RBA Greg Courtney as well as replacement RBA applicants Michele Brougher and Greg Smith. There is still no RBA application for succeeding Susan France for OR: Portland. The Ukraine solidarity events have completed, all results have been processed, and certificate numbers have been received. All ACP and LRM results have been filed. UAF certificate numbers will be assigned pending Web Team support. Flèche certificate numbers have been received but not entered into the RUSA system yet. Regions were given the opportunity to host ACP events in November and December of this year, and a handful of regions have elected to do so. On Friday Rob will resubmit the 2023 ACP calendar to include the additional November and December 2022 events, plus some changes requested for the 2023 calendar year.

Charlie presented a written report prepared by John Lee Ellis on the activities of the Web Team. A dynamic results filtering feature has been implemented and is ready to test. Content updates have been added for audax Q&A and 2023 Board candidates. The back office awards and events reports now support additional fields. The back office results view now displays a table of rider DNFs. K-Hound distance calculations have some additional deduplication. Brevet routes now explicitly support audax and/or allure libre formats. The Web Team is actively working on several Drupal fixes and enhancements for the permanents system, an email reminder for RBAs to submit event results, and migrating Michal's permanents map to the RUSA server. The Web Team is investigating proper ACP flèche and UAF results export, UAF certificant number import, a content update for the PBP FAQ, and recognizing elevation in rider results. The Web Team has had a preliminary discussion with the Routes Committee regarding elevation support in brevet routes.

Dawn had provided reports on the September and October issues of Between Controls, as well as reports on special editions for October 1 and November 1. The September issue of Between Controls was sent to 3,728 members with a 67.2% open rate and a 15.8% click rate. The top 3 areas that received clicks were the Coffeeneuring link (51.1% with 364 clicks), the gravel program link (24.7% with 176 clicks), and the store (8.6% with 61 clicks). The Board 2022 Strategic Goals received 13 clicks, the Board meeting minutes received 8 clicks, and the Mission/Vision received 4 clicks.

The October 1 special edition of Between Controls was a call for 2023 Board nominations and was sent to 3,756 members with a 64% open rate and a 0.7% click rate. The Board of Directors Responsibilities link received 22 clicks, the Mission/Vision received 9 clicks, and the officials search received 4 clicks.

The October issue of Between Controls was sent to 3,821 members with a 66% open rate and a 19.4% click rate. The top 3 areas that received clicks were the 2023 Calendar (30.8% with 321 clicks), the muscle cramps article (23..5% with 245 clicks), and the SFR mixed terrain video (12% with 125 clicks). The Board 2022 Strategic Goals received 30 clicks, the Board meeting minutes received 9 clicks, and the Mission/Vision received 6 clicks. The November edition will be sent on November 10, 2022 and will include a membership renewal reminder and American Randonneur Award nominations.

The November 1 special edition of Between Controls was a call to vote in the 2023 Board election and was sent to 3,855 members with a 64% open rate and an 11% click rate. The election info link received 252 clicks, the voting form received 233 clicks, and the Board of Directors Responsibilities link received 22 clicks.

The Board discussed the RBA transition for IA: Central, with Greg Courtney planning to step down. RBA applications were received from Michele Brougher and Greg Smith. A motion was made and passed to accept Greg Smith's application for RBA of IA: Central.

The Board discussed ideas for increasing the ridership in the IL: Chicago region. Dawn followed up with a written report of the ridership in the IL: Chicago region as well as a comparison to nearby regions IA: Central, IL: Quad Cities, and WI: Western, and also to CO: Boulder, MN: Twin Cities / Rochester, and WA: Seattle. The number of events held in IL: Chicago was 11 in 2016, 19 in 2017, 15 in 2018, 21 in 2019, 21 in 2020, 16 in 2021, and 5 in 2022. The number of starters was 179 in 2016, 230 in 2017, 162 in 2018, 237 in 2019, 2 in 2020, 16 in 2021, and 32 in 2022.

The Board discussed RUSA's recent allowance for running ACP events year-round. Rob informed RBAs that the last 2 weeks of October as well as all of November and December are now available for hosting ACP events, and that they should hurry if they wish to calendar any ACP events for November or December of 2022. There may be some process details to work out for insurance reporting and the Brevet Coordinator role. Charlie and Rob will follow up to determine new calendaring requirements for the RUSA website.

Dave provided an update on the RUSA store. More vests are coming in from T2S in France. Audax medals are on the way, and there will be medals for 100, 200, 300, 400, 600, and 1000 km distances available for sale. Charlie will update the RUSA website to ensure that audax and SR600 medals become available based on having done a qualifying ride. ACP super randonneur medals were ordered much earlier in the year and are finally on the way.

The Rules Committee had sent a proposed revision to Article 6 of the Rules for Riders regarding what constitutes personal support. The Board revised some of the wording for clarity. Dave will report back with a restatement of the objectives in codifying the rules update so that the Board can ensure that the new verbiage meets these objectives.

Charlie provided an update on incorporating elevation into brevet routes. There had been a discussion between the Board, the Web Team, and the Routes Committee to work out details of how this might work. The Web Team and the Routes Committee will continue this discussion and then report back to the Board with a proposal.

The next scheduled meeting is on Wednesday, December 14, 2022. The meeting concluded at 18:49 PST