Staff and volunteer refresher training

Newsletter

OYT South bulletin 18th June 2021

In this Bulletin
Sections which have changed since last time marked *


* Wellbeing campaign - round-up of the last five weeks
In the last five issueswe have written about a five-week #SailToWellbeing campaign which we ran alongside other members of UK Sail Training. Based on research promoted by the NHS and MIND, it looked at five key steps you can take to improve your mental health and wellbeing. Every one of these five steps is a natural part of a sail training voyage: you really can #SailToWellbeing.

The steps are:

1: Connect with other people.
2: Be physically active
3. Take notice and pay attention to the present moment
4: Learn new skills
5. Give to others

The initial five-week launch phase is complete, but #SailToWellbeing remains at the heart of what we do, now and in the future. Those of us who have experienced sail training all know how much difference it can make: this is hard evidence showing how and why it works. For anyone thinking of sailing with us, volunteering for us or supporting us, #SailToWellbeing is at the core of our message.

wellbeing

wellbeing

wellbeing

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* Prolific news - includng staff and volunteer refresher training!
We’ve now done the last of the refresher training sessions with staff and volunteers ahead of the start of the season. Lee took command last weekend and ran a great couple of days in an incredibly busy Solent with quite a bit more breeze than forecast – and some excellent sailing. The best explanations of what was actually covered during the weekend comes from trainee sea staff Jess and Sumaiya.

Huge thanks to all involved for making these training voyages such a success. As with all the other training voyages in the last few weeks, there was tremendous joy in being back together and out on the water, with the prospect of youth voyages not far off!

At sea

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* Update on plans for the season
Although the Government this week announced a delay to the lifting of restrictions until at least 19th July, the good news is that we ARE allowed to start the season as planned, though clearly the continuation of social distancing rules means we must operate at reduced capacity.

We will keep this under review in the light of any revised guidelines.

The limited-capacity places have all been filled on our voyages and there are already quite a few names on the waiting lists in case we are allowed to add extra places as the summer goes on, but if you would like to join the waiting list for a place for a young person on one of these voyages, please email webmaster1@oytsouth.org

18-23 July, 5 nights, starting and finishing Brixham, £505 per person
1-7 August, 6 nights, starting and finishing Brixham, £595 per person
8-14 August, 6 nights, Brixham to Southampton, £595 per person
21-26 August, 5 nights, Dartmouth to Poole, £505 per person
27 -31 August, 4 nights, Poole to Southampton, £405 per person
2-7 Sept, 5 nights, starting and finishing Southampton, £505 per person (age 16-25)
23-26 October, 3 nights, starting and finishing Southampton, £310 per person

The age range for our voyages is 11-25 unless otherwise specified; but in practice we don’t generally have 11-year-olds and 25-year-olds sailing together so when you apply for a particular voyage we can tell you the age range of those already booked and check whether it is suitable for you.

Please bear in mind that the decision on how many people we might be able to take from the waiting list may come at short notice and is dependent on government announcements. We really don’t know what decisions might be made, or when.

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* Roy Hughes
We are desperately sad this week to have to announce the death of Roy Hughes, one of our most warm-hearted and much-loved volunteers. Roy hugely enjoyed his voyages as a watchleader, but he was also a tremendous support to our team at successive vessel refits. He brought plenty of skills and enthusiasm but also a very comforting sense of utter dependability: you could always rely on Roy and he would go out of his way to offer his backing and guidance to any member of our team who needed him. He wasn't just one of the casual refit volunteers: he always seemed like one of the core team. He was also lovely company on board and took great pleasure in doing something to make a real difference for young people. He will be very much missed by the OYT South team and our hearts go out to Ruth and the family.

Roy

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* In this week in previous years
While the charity is waiting to return to normal voyages with young people, it is good to keep reminding ourselves about the value of our charitable work, the life-changing experiences and fantastic fun and friendship on our voyages and at our vessel refits and other activities. If you have a treasured memory of sailing, working or volunteering with us, or a tale of a voyage you will never forget, or a funny story, please send it to webmaster1@oytsouth.org and we'll publish the best in future editions of this newsletter.

We have now completed a full twelve months of round-ups on what we would be doing this week in a normal year, so if you want to see what we are usually doing in the third week of June, you can find it here. It’s a great reminder of how much effort so many people have put in over the years to ensure that we can keep helping young people develop the skills to succeed in life!

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* Honour for an OYT South trustee!
Congratulations to OYT South Trustee Lesley Robinson who received an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List 2021 for her services to the Leisure Marine Sector. Lesley is the CEO of British Marine and the honour particularly recognises her professional work – but she has also been a Trustee of OYT South since 2016.

Lesley

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* Trans Awareness – zoom session report!
This week some of our staff and volunteers as well as other ASTO members took part in a fantastic course led by the charity Gendered Intelligence. Full of information on the basics of transgender awareness, the session allowed us to think how we can work to become a more trans-inclusive organisation and how best to support all of our young and adult crew. Thank you to everyone who joined in, and to GI and our trainer for such a great evening.

Flag

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Financial appeal
Big thanks to all our supporters and friends who have responded with such kindness and generosity to our appeal over the last year. We are not thanking everyone individually in the bulletin only because quite a few people have asked to remain anonymous; but we are truly grateful to all of you. Everyone who has contributed and is still contributing is playing a huge part in getting us through this long period with no voyage income, and ensuring that the charity will be strong enough to do important work with young people who will need us more than ever, as soon as we can safely sail again.

See here for how to make a donation - you can contribute by cheque, phone or PayPal, but please do something if you possibly can. Don't forget that if you complete and return a Gift Aid form (pdf) we can claim back tax on your donation.

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Painting of Prolific – prints available to buy!
Our friend, Gosport-based marine artist Colin Baxter, has prints taken from an original painting of Prolific available for you to buy.

Painting

The unframed prints will measure 370mm x 230mm plus border. They will be numbered and signed, and will cost £45 if you can pick yours up in Gosport, and £50 if you need it posted (they will probably come rolled in a cardboard tube). Order here:

Postage / collection options

Anyone outside the UK wanting to order a copy, please email us.

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Online training courses for volunteers – safeguarding and more
If you know you have certificates which will expire this year (or have already expired), we have new EduCare licences available – if you would like one to complete your courses, either pay through the website link or get in touch with the office and we’ll talk you through what’s needed -  we can tell you what’s expired and what’s still valid, and what dates apply. If would be great if everyone can get on and ensure all qualifications are up to date so we don’t have to chase people for important pieces of paper at the last minute!

See previous issues of this newsletter for details of online RYA training which may be of interest.

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Passports – be prepared
Since 1st January 2021, British passport holders travelling to the EU will need to ensure that on the day you travel, your passport has at least 6 months left, and it must also be less than 10 years old (even if it has 6 months or more left). If you’re planning to sail with us once we get up and running again, do make sure your passport is in order in case your voyage might be able to sail to France. We won’t be sailing outside the UK until the situation with Covid seems more secure, but it would be a shame to get to that point and then find a long wait as everyone else is suddenly needing to renew their passports too: you might find it convenient to get it renewed while travel isn’t possible so that you don’t have to send it off for renewal later on!

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Raise funds for OYT South if you're shopping online!
"What a fool I was!" says Mark Todd.

"For ages I've seen in the bulletin that Easyfundraising is a good way to raise money for charity, but I never got round to doing anything about it, and when Caz told me how easy it was, I didn't listen.

I thought it might be a hassle, or that I'd have to remember to do something when I bought stuff online, or that it probably wasn't really worthwhile.

This week I finally got round to it and it turns out it's a REALLY EASY way to raise money for the charity I care about ... and I definitely should have done it sooner.

It takes a minute or two to sign up; you can do it on a desktop, tablet and/or phone, and you can install a widget that flags up when a donation is available. Once that's done, imagine you're looking to buy - say - a rainbow unicorn: just put "rainbow unicorn" in your usual search box, and the list of results shows you which sites come with donations, and how much. It's up to you what to pick and whether to accept the donation from the site, but a huge choice of sites will offer a donation - and it doesn't cost you a penny.

I don't know why I didn't do it sooner ... but if there's anyone else who has been like me and just not got round to it, PLEASE click the link now and sign up!"

Easyfundraising

OYT South is also registered with Amazon Smile which makes donations to us when people shop - Amazon will donate 0.5% of the net purchase price on eligible purchases. If you ever shop with Amazon, do have a look - once you pick Ocean Youth Trust South as your chosen charity and start using https://smile.amazon.co.uk, you don't need to do anything further, and all your other Amazon account settings remain unchanged.

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OYT South social media – please get involved
One of the simplest ways you can help us while we can’t sail is to keep looking at our social media pages and share, retweet or like as many posts as possible. This all helps to make sure other people hear about us too – and the more we can keep alive the interest in our charitable work, the more people might help us now or start to think about sailing with us in future. Maybe you’ve got a community group, a local page, even a street WhatsApp where members might like to know that you are involved with a charity that could be of interest to them?

We are on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/oytsouth - please do give us a Like! If you were friends with John Laing on our old page (https://www.facebook.com/johnlaingsailing please do move to the new page now.

We are also on Twitter @oytsouth so please follow us!

And Instagram @oyt_south

And LinkedIn Ocean Youth Trust South

Please note that OYT South has a policy that our adult staff and volunteers should not make or accept individual online friend requests with crew members aged under 18, or vulnerable adults. Crew members can use the sites to stay in touch with the boat and with each other, but not with individual staff and volunteers.

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Branded clothing
OYT South branded clothing available - please see here. You can buy hoodies (in a wide range of colours), fleeces, short- and long-sleeved t-shirts, baseball caps, beanie hats, polo shirts and more, all with OYT South's logo!

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Raise And Sail - website for anyone looking to raise money to come sailing
Raise And Sail is a section of this website full of ideas, information and support for young people who would like to raise money in order to come sailing with us. Huge thanks to Fiona Keen and Emma Burrows for putting Raise And Sail together. We hope you will find it useful - let us know how you get on as we can add success stories and new ideas to the site in due course.

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New readers' welcome and introduction
If you have recently registered your interest in OYT South, welcome to our newsletter, which is sent out almost every week, normally on a Friday, and is also copied onto the website.

If you have just started receiving this newsletter by email, it is because we believe you have signed up and consented to receive it - perhaps by emailing us to ask for it, completing a form on our website, or adding your email address to the book on board where people can sign up to receive news, as well as leaving comments. If this was a mistake or you simply decide you want to stop receiving the newsletter, just press “reply” to the email and write UNSUBSCRIBE at the top, or email webmaster1@oytsouth asking to unsubscribe.

Each week the newsletter includes a wide range of news from the boat and from the charity, including details of voyages available for young people; adult voyages; opportunities for adult volunteers both ashore and afloat, and much more. We find that while some people read the bulletin almost every week, many others dip in and out, and read it when it's convenient - which is why some items are repeated. New items are marked with an asterisk * so that if you did read it last week, you can see which sections you can safely skip.

Please feel free to join in any OYT South activities - nothing here is restricted to long-standing members or people who already know one another. New people are always very welcome!

If you need an introduction to the work of OYT South, you should find a lot of useful information on our website. But essentially, we are a registered charity (no. 1079959) which exists to offer adventure under sail as a personal development opportunity for young people aged 12-25, from the widest possible range of backgrounds. A high proportion of our young crew members are disadvantaged or deserving in some way: many of these sail in groups organised by other charities, youth clubs, special schools and so on, and will fill the bulk of our term-time voyages. But those from more fortunate backgrounds are also welcome to sail, either in groups or by coming as individuals on a mixed voyage. Every year we run a variety of shorter local voyages plus longer adventure trips - sometimes including Tall Ships races during the summer holidays. If you are aged 12-25 and hoping to sail as a crew member, take a look here - and this section is also useful for adults who are thinking of organising a voyage for a young person. Adults planning to organise a full group voyage should also see here. Adults who want to sail themselves should see here.

We have a professional staff skipper and engineer, but our watch leaders are normally all volunteers, who combine sailing skills with an interest in working with young people. You can find more information here - how the system works, how to join, and profiles of existing staff and volunteers.  

To volunteer for OYT South ashore, please see here. To help with the vessel's annual refit, see here.

It is a very expensive business maintaining a boat, running an office and employing staff. If you want to help us, please become a member of OYT South. Or see here for information on making a donation.

If you have any questions, please do email - or contact the office.

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Receiving this newsletter by email
Many thanks to all those who have given consent to receiving this newsletter by email. If you are not currently getting it by email and would like to, please just click here Newsletter Subscribe and press "send", or email webmaster1@oytsouth.org.

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“To be honest I never wanted to come, but I'm glad I did because I have learnt and seen so much!" Charlotte