Rob Hawks <rob....@gmail.com>: May 30 07:45AM -0700
Please forgive the cross posting. I am hoping to get this out to as wide an
audience as possible.
For a fairly large segment of RUSA membership, there are a number of people
who are quite focused on qualifying and registering for PBP. Personally,
PBP means a great deal to me and I too am focused on qualifying so I want
to see everything work well. Please note that both Randonneurs USA (RUSA)
and Audax Club Parisien (ACP) are *volunteer* organizations. Your regional
brevet administrator (RBA), who is the visible face of RUSA, is not getting
paid to run brevets in your region. I just double checked, and sure enough
I was right. No one is getting rich being an RBA.
At this time of year especially, RBAs are doing a great deal of work
designing routes, reviewing existing routes, hosting brevets, managing
waivers, preparing start control rosters, checking riders in, herding cats
to collect proof of passage and finding volunteers to help put on quality
events. Right now, they might be contending with riders that need just one
more qualifier and are super eager to see their results show up on the RUSA
website.
A lot of work goes on behind the scenes before those results show up on the
website. The RBA has to review proof of passage, then submit the results to
RUSA. RUSA requires the RBA to complete that step within 7 days of the
conclusion of the event but there are good reasons why those results don't
show up on the RUSA website a few hours after the event is over.. RUSA
volunteers then need to review all the submissions to prepare files to send
over to the ACP, retrieve certificate numbers and upload those into the
RUSA website. There is a team of volunteers who are making sure all the
website functions do just that: function. There is also volunteers who
process membership applications and renewals so that riders are cleared to
participate on brevets, and a team of volunteers who review the routes to
make sure they are up to standards (and there is always a queue of routes
to review).
On the ACP side of things, imagine having your usual workload increase
because worldwide there are more countries putting on more events in order
for riders to qualify at the same time as putting on an event for 8,000
people. Keep in mind, the ACP is not a very large club and is just that, a
club and not a business.
Please, if something unexpected has happened and you find yourself irked or
worse, feel free to compose a very strident email, giving vent to all your
frustrations. And then delete that and write a message to hopefully correct
your situation where the audience intended is one or more people who have,
and will continue to give up their free time to make RUSA run so that you
have brevets to ride. There is a volunteer with RUSA that will help you
with your concern.
rob hawks
CA: San Francisco RBA
RUSA membership team member
RUSA Brevet Coordinator
RUSA RBA Liaison
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