Congratulations to Mike Berry who was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in the Australia Day Honour List. His medal was awarded for his 40 years of service to the Dunoon community. This honour is well deserved.

Mike moved from Sydney to Dunoon in 1981 and once he settled in and adapted to his new home he became involved in a committee that was looking a ways to improve the amenities in the village for its residents.

Dunoon Sports Club

He has had a significant role with the Dunoon Sports Club since the mid 80’s. He joined a committee to formalise a plan to establish a sports club, then assisted with many years of fundraising to enable the club to be built on land donated by the Balzer family.

Once the committee was confident that they could proceed with the build Mike set about lobbying governments for grant funding and was successful. This proved to be one of Mike’s strengths. The building was built solely by community volunteers. Recruiting an enthusiastic team and organising them was also a valuable strength that Mike possessed. The Dunoon Sports Club was officially opened in1993.

Dunoon United Football Club

Mike was also instrumental in establishing the Dunoon United Football Club a year later. He identified that Dunoon needed its own soccer club as the few teams at the time were playing under the banner of one of the Lismore clubs.

As president of the club Mike once again lobbied governments and other groups for funding several times over the years as the number of teams expanded. This included the expansion of the oval to house two full size playing fields, the installation of flood lighting for training and night games, as well as the construction of an amenities block housing a new canteen, storage area, change rooms and toilet facilities. Mike organised community volunteers and trades people once again for the construction.

Rural Fire Brigade

In June this year Mike will celebrate 40 years of service with the Dunoon Rural Fire Brigade. He joined the brigade in 1986 and has held the position of president since 1994. Mike has held several field officer positions and has been the brigade captain since 2018. He has guided the brigade through many changes over the years.

Mike was a volunteer at the Sydney Olympics in 2000, has attended many major fires across the country. Canberra 2003, Victoria 2009, Tasmania, and several fires around Sydney and the Blue Mountains as well as the New England Tableland. During the catastrophic fires of 2019/2020 he organised the Dunoon brigade to respond to fires across the Northern Rivers on 60 occasions and attended at least half of them as crew leader.

He, and other brigade members received a National Medal for their efforts. For six weeks Mike managed crews to wash the mud from houses, offices, warehouses and streets after the February 2022 floods.

Dunoon Village

Another successful achievement for Mike, as part of a four person team representing the Dunoon Community Group which, for three years questioned information provided in a development application for a controversial, inappropriate residential development, which included an on-site community managed sewage treatment plant.

The group presented evidence and facts that discredited the information and the developer eventually withdrew the DA. This was an outstanding success as it is believed that it was a test case and if approved it would have opened the door for similar developments across the state. 

2018 Award LCC

In 2018 Mike received an Australia Day award from the Lismore City Council for Services to the Community – Individual, for his efforts to improve safety around schools and school buses. I am sure there that there there are many other contributions that we are not aware of.

The Dunoon Social Golf Club is one that comes to mind.

Mike is a humble man. He recognises his skills but he said that he would not be happy to accept the OAM without acknowledging the many behind the scenes volunteers that contributed to all the projects mentioned in this article.

A huge thank you and congratulations to Mike Berry from the Dunoon Community.

This article appeared in Dunoon and District Gazette, February–March 2026.