Congratulations to Fiona Rodger, winner of the John Gunning Volunteer Award (East District)

Congratulations to Fiona Rodger of Livingston SC, winner of the John Gunning Volunteer Award (East District) at the Scottish Swimming Awards 2025

In her youth, Fiona started coaching with a disability club in Port Glasgow before moving to England. On her return to Scotland, she coached for Grangemouth ASC, then individual clubs in West Lothian and finally for a time with Swim West Lothian. She is also a pool Technical Official. However, it is in the Open Water Sport that she has made the greatest mark.

Although she has never served on the National OW Committee, she has been an important volunteer in the Sport for very many years, critical to Open Water events and officiating at every Scottish National OW Championships and also virtually all District OW Championships since 2005, usually in the role of Clerk of the Course, which in OW is arguably the most hard-working and intense role during any event (as our Referees can confirm), requiring close liaison between the Safety Teams, Referees and other STOs to ensure the welfare and safety of all the athletes.

She has a well-deserved reputation amongst Referees and Technical Officials for the effective, fair and thorough discharge of that role.
She has been closely involved in the mentoring of the vast majority of our current senior OW Technical Officials.

She has worked tirelessly in various volunteer roles for well over ten years, prior to and after all these events, which involves an enormous amount of work to ensure that the events go smoothly. The very fact that this has gone un-noticed demonstrates how thoroughly she has done this work. In that time, she has suggested and helped pioneer several improvements to the way the Sport operates, significantly improving safety and reducing the environmental footprint of our events.