Randonneurs USA

Minutes for the June meeting were approved.

Greg Smith was appointed as the RBA of the new SW Wisconsin region.

The reflective gear guideline document is on the RUSA website (on the announcements page). It encourages an EN1150 vest, but those are hard to find. Can RUSA get vests which meet this standard? Jennifer will see what she can find for the RUSA store in as a bulk order. We should see if it is possible, then do a bulk order. Some number of vests could be supplied to the RBAs at the start of the year, we could send them some to sell or give to riders who are not properly equipped, as they choose. Jennifer has sent inquiries to some vendors and is awaiting their responses. She will get back to the Board when she has more information.

Based on the 2011 experience, we ran a contest, but didn't say what we were looking for. The design submissions were good souvenir jerseys and showed you did a ride in France, but didn't identify us as RUSA/team/country identity. We should be clearer about what we want in advance, rather than apply that standard after the fact.

We can put the designs up and collect feedback.

Discussion:

An event was run advertising it as a RUSA brevet. It had not been calendared, nor had the local RBA asked for it to be calendared. Only RBAs can calendar an event. They can let someone else organize the event under their auspices, but it is the RBA's event. The RBA did not ask post-event to have it approved.

Proposal:

Moved that we deny event approval and credit.
Seconded.

Vote:

Unanimous to not give credit for the event.

It was recommended to reinforce that events have to be calendared by the RBA; event organizers have to work through the RBA.

The board will review the application documents and decide by Sept 1.

ACP does not provide liability insurance to the route owner of an SR600 route. RUSA does provide liability insurance to RUSA permanent route owners. Mark would like to find a way to have these be RUSA events, have organizers submit results to our database, and riders get RUSA distance credit for them. We could make them quasi-RUSA events, and use the RUSA insurance coverage. Permanent insurance is paid after the fact, when results are submitted; if the SR600s are sanctioned by us or run by a RUSA member, it would qualify for insurance coverage.

This would only apply to Randonneur mode participants.

Credit would be given retroactively those riders who had already completed a domestic SR600.

If they are considered a perm, there is already a framework for entering the results, and to date, there are not a lot of results to enter.

RUSA would like to find a way to provide distance credit and insurance coverage.

The Board will respond that we are favorably inclined to the proposal and will be working on a detailed proposal for further Board discussion.

It was noted that this is a cyclical discussion; comes up every so often. Given that the knowledge/laws may vary across 50 states as to what constitutes a legally signed waiver, and that we can't know if the person who checked the box was the person named in the registration, the Board is not inclined to move toward electronic waivers as presented in the member proposal at this time.

Updating the current website, while desirable, could be an expensive proposition, if we don't have skilled volunteers who will commit to the project. It was proposed that a way to do this without disturbing current day to day operations is to get a copy of the RUSA website and data and move over to another site, develop there, leaving the existing site working until a new, tested website is ready.

Lynne and Mike will work with the web site committee to develop a strategy to move forward.

The next issue is in pretty good shape, except for the president's message.
Board Nominations are due Friday August 15.
The newsletter will go out first or second week of September.
The layout on this issue was done by a contractor. We may use our freelancer for the next issue as well.

Status: We have received them, and sent 500 copies to Don Hamilton, Membership Chair.
The first print run was 3500-4000 copies.

Mark proposed to send the new handbook to each member. The new Handbook has a substantially more content and updated safety information. There is a good reason we send members a handbook. Mike seconds.

Passed unanimously.

Treasurer

The taxes have been filed; they looked very much like last year.

Our cash position is flat.

Membership always grows, so we get more dues, but last year we spent more underwriting safety vests.

The treasurer noted that we have more members, and more perms are being ridden; we underwrite those completely. The insurance we pay for perms is significant.