DC Randonneurs

Happy New Year DC-Randonneur!

Just a reminder that DCR membership expires on Dec 31st. If you’ve renewed already, thank you very much. Otherwise, please renew before the annual meeting. Only $10 per person to continue receiving club news and notices, have full voting privileges at the annual club meeting on Jan 24th, and oh yes, participate in an exciting series of club brevets in 2009!

You can enter your renewal information online at:

http://www.dcrand.org/dcr/clubinfo.php?page=membership-renewal

George Winkert
Treasurer, DC Randonnuers

Dear current or former DC Randonneurs member,

We have a new RBA!

For some of you, this will duplicate messages sent to the DCR listserve last Friday — but some DCR members are not on the DCR listserve, and we did want to follow up with an official DCR announcement.

RUSA approved Bill Beck, our Club Brevet Administrator, as provisional RBA. Our first two scheduled brevets are May 31, the “Urbana 200″ RUSA brevet, and July 19, the “Warrenton 200″ RUSA brevet. Bill Beck’s note, below contains more details.

While you wait for the next DC Randonneurs brevet, keep in mind that there are a continually increasing number of RUSA permanent routes are available in the area, that can be used for awards like the R-12. For those riders who want or need to ride an ACP-sanctioned brevet this spring, click on one of the Regional Clubs on the Links page.

Your volunteer support will be needed for the upcoming brevets. If you’d like to volunteer, please contact Mary Gersema by clicking on the Contacts page of the website, and then clicking on “Volunteer Coordinator”.

We would also like to encourage you to volunteer for the Shenandoah 1200, by contacting shenandoah1200@yahoo.com We hope this grand randonnee will showcase the beautiful and historic countryside in this region, and that visitors will go away with great memories. Though DC Randonneurs is not officially a sponsor of the Shenandoah 1200, I know that Bill Beck has already offered to volunteer, and I intend to do so as well. Hope to see you there.

Congratulations to Bill, on behalf of myself and of the DC Randonneurs’ Board.

As it says in a Timbuk3 song … “The future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades!”

Nick Bull
President, DC Randonneurs
on behalf of the Board of DC Randonneurs

Fellow DC Randonneurs,

As you have seen in Nick’s message, RUSA approved my application to become a Regional Brevet Administrator (RBA), so DC Randonneurs is back in the business of scheduling brevets!As Nick also described, RUSA has initially approved two RUSA-sanctioned brevets: the Urbana 200K on May 31 and the Warrenton 200K on July 19. If those are run successfully, they will let me submit additional rides. We are planning on an active Fall schedule, including a RUSA Dart and a Fall 300K. And we will submit a full ACP series for the spring of next year.

If you visit the Find Rides section of the RUSA web site in the future, you will (eventually) find that the “DC:Washington” region has been replaced by a “MD Capital” (or similar name) region, associated with me/DC Randonneurs, and a “Northern VA” (or similar name) region, associated with Matt Settle/ROMA. However, all of the routes in the original DC region will be available to both groups, and DCR intends to offer rides over the full region. Therefore, we will coordinate our schedule with Matt and ROMA so that there are more opportunities for area randonneurs than with either club separately. For example, one club might run their fleche on the traditional Easter weekend, while the other could schedule on a different weekend for those who want to reserve Easter for other activities. Local riders would then have a choice.

We have so much talent and enthusiasm within DC Randonneurs that I am sure that the club has a very bright future. Please help celebrate our renewal by coming out to the inaugural rides on May 31 and July 19.

Finally, I would like to join Nick to encourage all of you to support the Shenandoah 1200 this year by riding or volunteering. Although DC Randonneurs is not an official sponsor of the event, it is the only 1200km Randonnee being held in the East this year, and perhaps in the near future. So it would be great to get it off to a good start so that riders in our end of the country have a not-too-distant 1200K option in the coming years. Last I heard, I will be bringing out food at the start and staffing the control in Gettysburg, and I hope to see lots of other DC Randonneurs out there. You can volunteer by sending an email to shenandoah1200@yahoo.com.

Bill Beck
Rookie RBA for DC Randonneurs

Fellow DC Randonneurs,

Thank you for your vote of confidence in approving my nomination to be our new RBA. It is an honor coming from such an accomplished and experienced group, and I hope that I can live up to your expectations. Furthermore, I will need your help in the coming months, since I only accepted the position knowing that I could draw on the incredible depth of talent that resides in the club.

I have nearly completed the RBA application (with many helpful suggestions from Lynn Kristianson) and hope to have it submitted this week. As we have said before, approval by RUSA is not a foregone conclusion, but we are quite hopeful. And if the application is approved, DC Randonneurs brevet schedule will be back in action very quickly. We will submit three RUSA brevets with the application, to occur in late May, July, and September. And we are also planning an active fall, possibly including a RUSA 300K, a set of brevets arranged around the 10^th anniversary of RUSA, and/or a Dart. Finally, we are planning on a full ACP series next spring. If you have something special that you would like to see, please let me know about it.

I would like to publicly thank the other board members Steve Ashurst, Nick Bull, Bill Clayton, Paul Donaldson, and Chris Mento for investing so much time over the past few months as we worked through the serious issues facing the club. Our new President, Nick, has been a dynamo, and Secretary Steve has gone way beyond the call of duty setting up two separate electronic elections.

In my RBA application, I said that I viewed success as an RBA from the point of view of a rider in the club. If he or she sees a ride schedule that is posted well in advance, feels welcome at the rides, thinks the routes are safe and scenic, and wants to look back at the web site a few days after each ride to read the ride summary and check out the results to see how their friends did, that would be success. And hopefully, that’s what will happen. But I assure you that I will willingly transfer the RBA position AND (if RUSA approves) the brevet schedule to a new RBA if the board and members ever decide that would be best for the club.

Bill Beck

Dear current and former DC Randonneurs members,

As several members have pointed out, Matt’s recent emails appear to be using the DC Randonneurs (DCR) email list.

Please note that the RBA’s recent disaffiliation with DCR means that the RBA is not entitled to use DCR property, which includes the email list, as defined in Article XI of our corporate bylaws, to which he is bound by agreement as a former Officer. We therefore ask that Matt remove all records related to current or past versions of the DCR email list.

So that Matt can form his own email list, please correspond with him directly to state that you want to be added to his email list. His email address is liznmatt@shentel.net.

If you subsequently receive email from Matt and you have not requested that you be placed on his mailing list, please inform DCR.

If you would like to be removed from the DC Randonneurs email list, please let DCR know and we will remove you.

Anyone who wishes to receive email from both DCR and Matt’s email list is of course welcome to do so.

Thank you,

The Board of DC Randonneurs.

Dear present and former DC Randonneurs member,

There have been several questions about whether the local ACP brevet series will continue to be conducted.

We wanted to reiterate that Matt Settle intends to conduct these brevets as scheduled, under his new organization.

Links to local brevet series, including Matt’s, are provided on the Links page of the DC Randonneurs’ website (dcrand.org).  The Calendar page provides further discussion, and will be updated to include any planned DC Randonneurs events.

Thank you,

The Board of DC Randonneurs.