The Masters Swimming Ontario SWIMS Award

Barrie Malloch Has a Passion for Learning

Barrie is an uncommon person. Unlike many, she has never lost her interest in learning new things, trying new things, and avoiding the routine in life. She came to Masters much later than many (especially some of the earlier OSG recipients, some of whom seem to have been swimming competitively in the womb). For her it was a new way to exercise. She joined the Mississauga Masters in the late 1980’s and never looked back.

After a couple of years learning the ropes, she transferred to Alderwood Masters and came under the tutelage of Ted Roach. Here she helped out with the meets and learned that missing an event due to a hangover is not necessarily a bad thing – just a new lesson to be learned. It was at this time she discovered that her name is also a little uncommon – as she had been entered in the male side of events repeatedly by meet managers who didn’t know her – of course she got to the meet to CORRECT it.

By the mid-1990’s she had moved to the Etobicoke Olympium Masters, and also started her first stint with the MSO Board. She served as club contact coordinator for two years, and then decided that she needed to learn some new skills. She taught herself to do web design and became the MSO web master, a position she filled until 2006. During this time the web page was completely redesigned, and it is now a model of simplicity for finding information, and her standards for timely updates and relevant information will be hard to match.

As if this was not enough, Barrie also raised two kids on her own, and had a career at the University of Toronto as a mycologist (biologist specializing in fungi). Not surprisingly, when she took early retirement at 62, it lasted less than a year before she had restarted work in private industry (just to keep her hand in and keep learning). It seems likely that swimming will continue to be on her list of interests as well, as long as she keeps learning new things. She’s going to Cuba for the 1 st time and she has Jacqueline as her personal guide to teach her more.

Masters Swimming Ontario and her good friends are pleased to honour Barrie Malloch with the Order of the Soggy Goggle (OSG) for her years of assistance to swimmers, her constant interest in helping out, and most particularly, for her never ending quest for knowledge that can help the swimming community. She is one that wants the facts and only the facts so Barrie come on up.