Newsletter
OYT South bulletin 9th April 2021
In this Bulletin
Sections which have changed since last time marked *
- * Prolific refit news
- * Trans Awareness – zoom session
- * In this week in previous years
- * The history of the charity – how it all began
- * Parkstone Yacht Club – Commodore’s charity
- * Financial appeal
- Online training courses for volunteers - safeguarding and more
- Passports – be prepared
- Raise funds for OYT South if you're shopping online!
- OYT South social media - please get involved
- Branded clothing
- Raise And Sail - website for anyone looking to raise money to come sailing
- New readers’ welcome and introduction
- Receiving this newsletter by email
* Prolific refit news
We’ve reached that happy point in a refit where instead of taking things apart, there is a lot more putting things back together and turning Prolific back into a working boat once more!
The life rafts and lifejackets are back on board:
Josh has been keeping up with the technical stuff – including fixing the heating system.
The boat is largely re-rigged and the sails are back from Quantum – big thanks for their efforts. And we have some new flares from WesCom Signal & Rescue (Pains Wessex) - huge thanks to them.
We were able to have a couple of helpers on board this week for socially-distanced outdoor jobs – here’s Lauren working hard on the capping rail:
Our other helper, Rocco, wanted to show us he was tall enough to help with the capping rail if only we would let him:
Today is about deep cleaning while contemplating the jobs list on the wall:
Although the staff team is back at work, of course we still need to take all necessary precautions against Covid, and so we are keeping the refit as small as possible and we won’t be calling for the usual army of volunteer help. If anything comes up where we do need help and can manage it safely, we will let you know; but in the meantime we want to thank everyone who has worked so hard on Prolific in recent years and ensured that the boat is in such a good condition that we only need to tackle the bare essentials this year.
If you want to support the refit team then the occasional phone call to the boat, an encouraging message on social media or anything else you can think of to boost morale is always welcome!
* Trans Awareness – zoom session
We are hoping to run an evening zoom session called Trans Awareness: The Basics, delivered by the charity Gendered Intelligence. This arises out of discussions at the volunteers' training weekend in February where a number of people said this was an area where they would be keen to learn more.
Increasing our knowledge of and language around gender will help us support young people (and each other) better and more confidently whenever this topic arises, importantly leading us to be a more trans-inclusive organisation.
The session will be 1hr45m long, with opportunities to ask questions too. We have been offered two possible evenings - please email hollyvint@oytsouth.org if you’re interested and let her know which date would work for you so we can pick the one that allows us to offer the session to as many people as possible:
Tuesday 18th May
Wednesday 16th June
The session will:
- Explain what ‘trans’ means and describe the diversity of those who might use the term.
- Introduce key concepts crucial to understanding trans people
- List the main legislation relating to trans identities
- Outline ways an organisation can work towards being trans-inclusive
- Provide links to further resources and help
Gendered Intelligence says: “We are a trans led charity working directly with some 500 young trans and gender questioning people from diverse backgrounds across the course of a year, primarily through our youth groups and 1:1 mentoring services. Their experiences inform our wider work. All our trainers are professional trainers/facilitators who are also trans identified, and who have extensive grassroots trans-community experience.”
* In this week in previous years
While the charity is unable to sail, 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 how we usually spend the beginning of April, 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!
* The history of the charity – how it all began
It’s been pointed out that the round-up of "activities at this time of year" which we have been publishing since the start of the pandemic takes us back to the early years of OYT South (and the start of the weekly email newsletter); but some of our members and supporters may not be familiar with the history of the charity before that, when we were the Ocean Youth Club. So over the next few weeks, we are going to fill you in on the story of the charity’s first forty years! Much of this is taken from the brochure produced by Emma Ellis for our fiftieth anniversary in 2010 – huge thanks to Emma for all her hard work.
The tale goes back to 1934, as Emma’s dad, OYC founder Chris Ellis, recalled in his memoirs: “My life started to change when I was fourteen. Frank Carr invited me to sail with him from Fowey to the Solent in his pilot cutter Cariad. If I had been asked to go with Shackleton to the South Pole I could not have been more excited. In the event I was terribly sick but this did not diminish my enthusiasm and the voyage was the pace-setter for all my subsequent enterprises. I can still recall the emotions of that first trip up the Channel, when the land started to fall away and the ship bow to her element. Many times since have I sat at the helm, alone on deck, and looked down into the swaying cabin where a dim light burned and the others slept – with the noises of the sea sometimes sounding like voices alongside, the creak of the rigging and the periodical clank of loose gear in the galley – with the phosphorus of the wave tops and the foam alongside, lit green and red by the side lights – with the heave and lurch of the vessel, the kick of the tiller, the lift and dip of the boom, the blackness of the sail against the stars........But never with the intensity of emotion of that first trip up the Channel.”
Chris Ellis suffered from chronic asthma and found a merciful release from it at sea during his teenage years. At this formative stage of his life, while doing as much sailing as he could, he developed a strong desire to make it possible for others to experience the same opportunities that had meant so much to him. It was not only about the sailing itself; in his view it was the interaction of people on board and the influence of the leaders that counted as much as anything. He wrote “it is the personalities that make the thing worthwhile”.
While serving as a bomb disposal officer in the Second World War with the RNVR, Chris spent his spare time devising a scheme for a fleet of vessels that could take young people to sea. After the war he became a teacher and first found a way of starting to carry out his plan by borrowing Cariad and sailing her to Norway with a crew of his pupils. We are very lucky that one of those boys is still a supporter of OYT South to this day, and you can read Peter Tracey’s account of that voyage here. Fourteen-year old Peter enjoyed a great adventure and as with his modern-day counterparts, learned a lot of lessons that proved useful in everyday life: “I wanted to wash some clothes and was told to use the powder on the shelf over the galley. I had never washed clothes before and was surprised that the water did not froth up. Eventually I was told that I had been using flour.”
In 1955 Chris Ellis found his dream vessel, ex Bristol Channel pilot cutter Kindly Light converted to a yacht called Theodora. He and some of his pupils refitted her and undertook some ambitious voyages including the first Tall Ships Race in 1956 and an eleven-month voyage to the West Indies, America and Canada in 1958.
Chris then took a job as a youth worker in Stevenage and found that his boat was a more powerful tool for youth work than anything he was able to do in the way of land-based activities. He was soon taking young people to Ipswich to sail in Theodora for weekends and longer voyages. He later said that the first half of a two-week voyage usually consisted of sitting on the mooring and teaching the young people how to maintain ship – because unless he did, it was not particularly safe to go sailing during the second week!
He wanted to expand the scheme so that more young people could take part but he needed administrative help and contacts. An idealist by nature, it is unlikely he would ever have got his scheme off the ground if he had not been assisted by the right people. By a twist of fate, Chris met the Reverend David Tonkin, a curate at the Eton Mission in Hackney Wick, on 21 September 1960. David was in the process of forming a Sea Scout Troop and it had been suggested to him that Chris might be able to help. Chris showed slides of his 1958 transatlantic voyage and David was enthused by the idea of `big boat' ocean sailing and arranged for some of the Eton Mission Sea Scouts to sail with Stevenage youth in Theodora in October. Chris explained to David that he had always dreamed of being able to take young people to sea on a larger scale and full time, because he did not think that a purely voluntary organisation could provide sailing experience on a scale sufficient to make a significant impact on even a minority of young people. He suggested the possibility of joining forces and even running another vessel. Through Eton College and a mutual friend called Archie Nicholson, Chris came to learn of Duet, whose owner the Reverend Christopher Courtauld had inherited the yacht the previous year and independently decided that he would like to find a way to make her available for young people to enjoy sailing.
Chris Ellis, David Tonkin and Chris Courtauld had meetings during November and December 1960 to discuss the detail, along with some of Chris Courtauld’s friends: Tony Butler, Ted Playne and Kit Power. Kit remains an active supporter of the charity to this day and when we bought Prolific and sailed her home from Norway in 2015, 81-year old Kit was part of the welcoming party alongside our then-18-year-old Youth Trustee, Jack Dignan:
Back in the 1960s, the meetings went well and Chris Courtauld generously agreed to loan Duet to the scheme.
The ethos behind the scheme was to create a ‘youth club’ on the water where everything, including the maintenance of the vessels, would be done by teams of young members. There were no particular criteria set as to who could take part. Anyone with a sense of adventure was welcome. However there was from the start a desire to mix young people from different backgrounds.
Fundraising began, helped by the 1960 Albemarle Report which brought Government recognition to schemes that would complement the work of the Youth Service and opened doors to contact with influential people who now accepted that youth schemes were worthwhile.
Duet was refitted and Jo Habens was appointed as the first Staff Skipper in April 1961:
Jo ran Duet out of the Solent from a base in Gosport, while Chris Ellis continued to run Theodora out of Ipswich. In May 1961 Duet did a voyage round to Ipswich and the two boats sailed in company for the first time.
The name “Ocean Youth Club” was David Tonkin’s suggestion. Jo Habens took on more and more of the organising of the scheme and in many ways it was Jo who really created the Ocean Youth Club. He had a huge network of contacts, a very practical nature and a gift for communicating with and enthusing young people. But it was a team effort as well and as Chris Ellis later wrote: “Behind the scenes much more has always gone on than members realise. A colossal amount of paperwork has passed through Jenny Habens’ typewriter and Ted Playne has devoted about 5,000 hours work without any reward.” It was clear very early on that fundraising was necessary to supplement voyage fees and the OYC was from the start dependent on the efforts of a huge network of volunteers, supporters and donors and a tiny number of paid staff. However, the charity always remembers the founders who provided the two original vessels: Chris Ellis and Chris Courtauld – seen here together in 1988:
That was how it all began, but there will be more chapters of this history in future issues of this newsletter.
* Parkstone Yacht Club – Commodore’s charity
We are delighted to announce that Gary Wakefield, the new Commodore of Parkstone Yacht Club, has chosen Ocean Youth Trust South to be one of the two Commodore’s charities which the Club will be supporting in 2021. We are very grateful to have been selected and we look forward to keeping in touch with Gary and his club members during the year.
* Financial appeal
Huge thanks this week to Gilly Drummond for a kind donation. We've also received a little more sponsorship from our Virtual Voyage (now up to an amazing £5,788); and the family and friends of Martin Pearson are continuing to donate generously to the fund in his memory.
Big thanks also to all our other 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.
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.
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. 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!
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!"
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
