Winners receive a cash prize, trophies, certificates, and a chance to promote chess in their community. Prize money is determined by your ACF rating (those without ACF ratings are ineligible for prizes). Prizes not redeemed will be forfeited and reinvested into promoting chess in Sydney. Rating Prizes are limited to 6 players per event, and the winners will be announced based on their ACF ratings at the end of the competition.

The Sidney Prize is given to students who demonstrate high standards of academic achievement, personal attributes and contribution to student life. This award is named in memory of former UHI lecturer Sidney Black who was passionate about encouraging women to pursue engineering careers. It is open to female, graduating students who have passed their BEng on any of our engineering programmes.

In 2024, Overland was honoured to have the Malcolm Robertson Foundation support this prize. The prize seeks outstanding short fiction of up to 3000 words, themed loosely around the notion of travel; imaginative, creative and literary interpretations are strongly encouraged. This year, a longlist of ten stories was selected by our judges — Patrick Lenton, Alice Bishop and Sara Saleh — who reviewed over 500 submissions. They chose Rachel Ang’s story ‘Thalassophobia’ to place first, and to publish in Overland’s autumn edition, with the two runners-up also being published online.

This is the third year in a row that a journalist has won the Hillman Prize. “The Unpunished” is a riveting piece about the unequal justice system in Israel. The story brought attention to the plight of residents in the village highlighted, and to the ongoing struggle of Palestinians for human rights, in a country that has not yet achieved full democracy.

This year, the Foundation is proud to honor Steven Fraser, a historian and biographer of our namesake, Sidney Hillman. Fraser has written extensively about the labor movement and the role of journalism in exposing injustice and supporting social change. His work is essential reading for anyone interested in the power of writing to bring about change.