Randonneurs USA Board of Director Minutes

September 9th, 2026

1. Call to order: The meeting on September 9th, 2026 was called to order at 10:00am Eastern over Zoom. The following members were present:

   1. Dawn Piech
   1. Charlie Martin
   1. Dave Thompson
   1. Emily O’Brien
   1. Noah Swartz
   1. John Lee Ellis
   1. Chris Argo
2. The minutes of the August Board meeting were approved
3. The August financial report was presented by Dave Thompson.
4. Charlie Martin presented that there was nothing to report for the Web Team report

5. Chris Argo presented the RBA-L report

   1. A motion was held to approve Rachel Wyman for a new NY region, name TBD

      1. The motion passed

   1. A motion was held to approve Kyle McKenzie as the new RBA for the Maryland Capital Region

      1. The motion passed

   1. A motion was held to approve Steve Kunsack as the new RBA for the Pittsburg Randonneurs

      1. The motion passed

   1. A motion was held to respond to John Hugo Ellis to work with the existing North Carolina Randonneurs RBA Michael O’Connor to help develop routes in the Durham area for 2027 rather than forming a new North Carolina region.

      1. The motion passed

   1. Some discussion was had over the request from Will Sherman to change the name of the Long Island Randonneurs (the sponsoring club for the NY: NYC and Long Island region) to the New York City Randonneurs

      1. There was some confusion about whether this would simply be a name change or the forming of a new club, it was determined to follow up with Will over email

   1. Discussion was had about the state of the Santa Rosa Randonneurs and Ryan Thompson as RBA

      1. It was determined that the best thing for the health of the region would be to have Rob act as RBA until a permanent replacement could be found and work with Tim Sullivan to incorporate the underlying club.

   1. Chris plans to send out a reminder to RBAs to complete their 2027 calendaring

      1. Dave requests that after this is done that Chris or Rob send a compiled list of rides to the board

6. Dave Thompson presented some changes in the UAF organization

   1. UAF is updating the way that results are submitted

   1. There was some discussion of the uniqueness and functionality of the identifiers RUSA shares with UAF on behalf of its riders

      1. Dave committed to getting a technical contact at UAF so that RUSA and UAF could ensure that the backends of their ride databases work well together

7. Dawn Piech presented on Between Controls

   1. Dawn and Ted continue to monitor open rate for Between Controls with the new format that began in April
   1. The brevet the weekend of MADE in Oregon benefited from the call out in Between Controls and the board should consider other rides that can be promoted
   1. Finger Lakes region will be highlighted in October
   1. Dawn continues to work on Rando Radio with the next edition expected for November
   1. Dawn looks forward to a zoom call with Ted and Paul Kramer to discuss RUSA media in October
   1. The marketing team is working on a way for members to submit media that can be used for any of the social media front ends.
   1. The next issue of between controls will be a week or two late this month
   1. Call for nominations for the open Board of Directors slots will go out Oct 1
   1. Dawn will also put out a Call for Volunteers for Between Controls as well as Marketing in a future edition.

8. A conversation was had about the recent Awards changes and Board response

   1. It was felt necessary for the board to make a statement regarding the process by which award submissions become ratified awards as well as the rationale that went into the recent awards decisions. This would both help the membership understand what thought went into the decision as well as assure that future versions of the board would understand why these changes were made.
   1. Charlie Martin agreed to kick off the process of these two statements, first by reaching out to the awards committee and then drafting a statement responding to some of the open questions from the recent email dialogue

9. Dave presented on the creation of physical RUSA 2027 Calendars

   1. The board discussed the price and whether some RBAs or volunteers should receive complimentary calendars.
   1. It was decided that RBAs would be given the opportunity to request up to 3 complimentary calendars for themselves and/or volunteers and the cost in the RUSA store for calendars will be decided later.

10. Dawn Piech presented on Marketing

    1. Dawn is still planning to compile the responses to the expo survey and will discuss in our October meeting
    1. There was also some discussion of whether RUSA would attend Philly Bike Expo or other expos next year
    1. Dawn to have a zoom with Bill Bryant in September and regroup with the Marketing committee in October.

11. The upcoming 2027 RUSA board of directors election was discussed

    1. Roles will be reprised from last year with Dawn sending out an announcement email via Between Controls for nominations, Don Hamilton managing the Election Buddy software, and Deb Banks or someone else in the case that Deb runs doing video interviews.
    1. There was some discussion on how to best publicize the election and ensure people received the email from election buddy. It was decided to promote in Between Controls as well as on the website and various google groups.
12. The board discussed how best to reach out to potential nominees for the RUSA board to ensure that the large number of open slots for next year were filled.
13. The next meeting date was confirmed for October 21st with Ted Fay being a special guest at the beginning to discuss a new process to allow members to share information for Between Controls as well as all other social media. Dawn and Ted have been discussing this since the spring and look forward to bring this new, streamlined process later this fall.
14. The meeting adjourned at 11:55am Eastern time.