Important changes to Year Round Randonneur Awards

The National Committee recently agreed to allow a rolling start for members wishing to achive the challenge of completing one rider per month for a twelve month period.  From 1 November 2017 you can start your challenge in any month for either the Year Round Randonneur or Petit Year Round Randonneur awards.  At the same time, and after lengthy consideration, the committee decided to change the required distance for the Petit Year Round Randonneur to 600 km and set the ride distance per month to a minimum of 50 km (any distance can be used for a monthly ride provided it is over 50 km). The Year Round Randonneur is still based on a minimum of 200 km per month and requires at least 1200 km of homologated rides over any 12 month period. All other rules remain the same and are outlined in the Awards Policy.

The attraction of the new rolling start is that members who are unable to ride for a period, for whatever their reason, can elect to commence a challenge when they think they have 12 months ahead in which they can complete at least one ride per month.

The new calendar is up and running so start planning!

Life memberships awarded

It has been some time since any new life memberships have been announced. At its May meeting the National Committee endorsed the recommendation that life membership be awarded to Peter Donnan, Matt Rawnsley and Christopher Rogers. The memberships were awarded at regional meetings in Adelaide and Melbourne in the middle of the year.  The citations for each nomination follow:

Peter Donnan

Peter Donnan’s legacy membership number is 79, he has been an active member for around 30 years. Peter has served on the Vic Regional Committee for well over 5 years as Secretary and social coordinator. Peter has also served as Int. Brevet Secretary working with National to help streamline and fast track Brevet results to members, and has worked proactively with other regional calendar coordinators. As a Ride Organiser over the last 22 years, Peter has organised over 50 calendar rides and currently 2 of 2 managers 14 permanents for Victoria. Peter has provided Audax with a wealth of rides along the Great Ocean Road such as the Geelong Flyer 1000, Midnight Madness 400 and many more. Peter took control of the 2016 Great Southern Randonnee and devised a new operating model that allowed the expansion of the event from a max of 40 riders in 2012 to 130 riders in 2016. This framework has been shared with the ride director for the 2017 edition of the Sydney Melbourne. As a cyclist Peter has achieved 75000km lifetime award for BRM/LRM Brevets with no DNF’s, 3 times Woodrup Award, 21 Super Randonneur Series, 5 x Paris – Brest – Paris, Cascade 1200 in Nth America, Ultra Randonneur award plus many other accomplishments. Peter continues avail himself through providing his professional knowledge via his support of the club through Abbotsford Cycles, as well as opening his house for billeting and BBQ events for Int. riders at the finish of GSR, Geelong Flyer and Sydney – Melb.

Peter (Left) Chris (Right) at Vic Region dinner

Matthew Rawnsley

Matt Rawnsley has been a member of the Club for almost 25 years, with an active cycling history. Being the first rider to achieve the 100,000km and Ultra Randonneur awards when first released in 2012 and has continued to receive a second Ultra Randonneur and the 125000km award. Matt has achieved cyclist results with the PBP x 5, Int. Super Randonneur plus many other achievements. Matt has served on the SA Regional Committee for over 10 years and general member, treasurer, brevet secretary and now continues as national brevet role in Checkpoint. Matt has been a RO in SA for many years and has been accredited with organising a large amount of the rides prior to his medical issues. Since recovering, Matt has been focusing on developing shorter series of rides that suit him and a wider group of new members. Matt is also well known for volunteering at many larger interstate events.

Matthew receiving his award from David at SA regional gathering

Christopher Rogers

Chris has been an active member of Audax for around 20 years, his legacy membership number is 506. Chris has served as RAID Secretary for 16 years and for 6 years as general committee member and calendar coordinator on the Vic Regional Committee. During this time, Chris was instrumental in building collaboration between different regions and in developing different ride types such as Trim the Cat series run in Victoria, Sth Aust and Western Aust. Introduction of the GT Super Randonneur. Conceived and developed the Sydney – Melbourne 1200 and was Ride Director for the first edition of this event. As an ongoing Ride Organiser Chris has contributed to over 35% of the ride routes currently used in Victoria. Chris has run over 300 calendar rides and is actively managing 94 Permanents including Five Special Series and a Dirt Series. In his spare time Chris has managed to complete over 132000km for lifetime award, 4 times recipient of the Woodrup Award, 30 Super Randonneur Series, 5 Super Randonneur Series in a single season, Paris – Brest – Paris completed and to many more to list. Chris also has a long history of volunteering for the Alpine Classic, manning control points and admin tasks. Chris also acts as on call rescue for a number of events held by other Ride Organisers and typically has an open door policy for any members finishing in his hometown.