Garingal life member and Sydney Summer Series founder/organiser Ross Barr is the ONSW Volunteer of the Year for 2020.
This is a fitting award as Ross celebrates the 30th year of the SSS, arguably the greatest local innovation in orienteering.
He has led the series since its conception as visionary, chief organiser and mentor (to course setters, organisers, competitors), not to mention feature reporter (in the weekly SSS blog where his exceptional prose and knowledge of the fine arts shine through).
Ross has also been a mapper and course setter for Garingal for many years, including for national events. He also writes periodically for The Australian Orienteer magazine on various topics.
This award makes it a neat handful of major ONSW awards: he received the President’s Award in 1996 and the Encouragement Award in 2006, and was twice named Course Setter of the Year (2015 and 2011). At a national level he was awarded the David Hogg Medal for Services to Orienteering in 2013.
He has also been recognised outside of orienteering, being named the Sport NSW Community Sport Administrator in 2016. He is a volunteer extraordinaire.
