In this Bulletin
Sections which have changed since last time marked *
- * Staffing news – new Staff Skipper and Staff Mate!
- * OYT South AGM 2022
- * Facts and figures from the 2022 sailing season
- * Winter refit news – and help needed
- * February shorebased training weekend for volunteers – more details
- * Sara’s leaving present – please donate now!
- * Holly’s leaving present – last chance to donate
- * 2023 voyages available for young people
- 2023 adult voyages and volunteer training
- * Volunteer sea staff bids for 2023
- Chris Ellis Award – win £££s off the price of your next voyage!
- * Financial appeal
- Oysterband – Portsmouth 30th November
- Movement for Good Awards – PLEASE nominate us for the December draw and share the link!
- Painting of Prolific – prints available to buy!
- Raise funds for OYT South if you’re shopping online – we’ve made over £1,100 through Easyfundraising!
- 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
* Staffing news – new Staff Skipper and Staff Mate!
Regular readers will know that our Staff Skipper Holly Vint is moving on at the end of the year, and Sara Abdur’s time as Staff Cadet has ended (though Sara is still with us as a refit volunteer). Further down this newsletter you will find links if you want to contribute to their leaving present funds, and we will write appreciations of both of them in this newsletter when the appropriate moment comes. But for now, those of you who haven’t already heard the news may be wondering who will be joining Josh as the staff team on board Prolific next season!
We are absolutely delighted to announce that Prolific’s new staff skipper will be Diggory Rose.
Some of us have known Diggory for many years as a highly experienced sail trainer and RYA Yachtmaster Examiner. He went to boatbuilding college and got the bug for big boat sailing, volunteering on Leader. Diggory sailed with Trinity and the Cirdan Trust, and got his first command in 2003, sailing Duet which of course was one of the two founding yachts of the Ocean Youth Club. What then followed was a decade in Sail Training for a variety of organisations culminating in the building of Pegasus with the Island Trust. Many OYT South members will remember Tall Ships cruises-in-company when John Laing and Pegasus were inseparable companions and Diggory was skipper of Pegasus … just don’t ask about the cucumbers off Helsinki!
Diggory moved out of Sail Training in 2013 and was a Watch Officer with the Coastguard amidst other sailing roles, before joining the Portsmouth Naval Base Property Trust in 2015. He says “Seven years there has been marvellous, caring for and operating a variety of historic craft and working closely with and for the volunteer gang that make it all happen.”
When we got Diggory’s application for our skipper job, of course our first thought was to wonder why someone who had already done his time in sail training and had a great job ashore might want to be a sail training skipper again. But Diggory has given us permission to reproduce two paragraphs of his application letter:
“In 2013 I left the [sail training] sector in search of pastures new and have enjoyed many and varied experiences all of which have enhanced and shaped my view of the world but none of which have come even vaguely close to being as rewarding, demanding or satisfactory as sail training is. As time has rolled by I find myself ever more convinced that I am at my best in that world and that the personal, social and spiritual benefits of sail training, both for the trainer and trainee alike, are not available in any other aspect of life. In short, I am keen to return to the role again.
The benefits of sail training for the young people who take part are manifold and vital and the experiences gained aboard sailing vessels cannot be bettered in any other field. I am well aware of these and the value that Ocean Youth Trust South places on the delivery of this to the young people in their care. Having worked in sister organisations to yourself for a number of years and shared in the growth and development of these organisations, you will know that I am willing and able to uphold the very best of the values and ideals that Ocean Youth Trust South espouses, both for the benefit of the organisation and more importantly perhaps, the beneficiaries; the young people sailing onboard.”
Diggory will be joining us in February and says: “Prolific and OYT South represents a new and very exciting chapter and I’m looking forward to meeting, sailing and working with the team here.”
We had a number of other good applicants for the skipper job, though no-one else with Diggory’s blend of skills and experience; but we hope the recruitment process has brought us some people who can stay involved with the charity, developing skills and experience on board Prolific, with every chance of becoming excellent sail training skippers in future.
Meanwhile, we have had an issue recently with a shortage of volunteer first mates as some have retired or wish to retire, while the pandemic has interrupted the development and training of people who might become new volunteer first mates. So for next season we are not going to have a Staff Cadet but we will instead have a Staff First Mate.
Our new Staff First Mate needs little introduction to many of you as she has been a regular volunteer for several years: we are delighted to welcome Lauren Mackenzie to the staff team.
Lauren has been with us since 2016 when she came to do her DofE residential. Apparently, despite having both Jack Dignan and Halima Mehmood as sea staff on that voyage, both of whom had worked their way up after initially sailing as crew members, she hadn’t fully realised the door was open for other young people like her to do the same. So when Andy Viney, staff skipper at the time, called her into the cabin for a chat towards the end of the voyage, she was a bit nervous. She says that when she came out knowing what a sea staff recommendation really meant, she didn’t stop smiling for days. She was a bosun in 2017; a third mate at the earliest opportunity after her 18th birthday in 2018 and a second mate later the same year, and our Youth Trustee 2019-2022. Who knows how fast she would have progressed had we not lost a season and a half to Covid while she finished her maths degree – but in the last few weeks she has passed her RYA Yachtmaster exam and her OYT South first mate assessment.
This does NOT mean we won’t need our volunteer first mates – we will need you when Lauren is on relief and also when she covers some of Josh’s reliefs in order to build up her knowledge of systems and maintenance. There is also scope to use Lauren in other roles – such as intensive training and support for new watchleaders – if she happens to be on board while we have a volunteer in the 1M role. We will also want to continue training up new volunteer first mates for the longer term.
We wish Lauren all the very best as she starts her career as a professional sailor – the latest in a line of very talented young people who are a key part of making OYT South so special.
* OYT South AGM 2022
Big thanks to Lesley Robinson who expertly chaired our AGM while the Chair of the Board, Eamonn Feeney, was abroad. Thanks also to everyone who came along and made it a great evening.
Among the official business of the AGM, we formally elected three new Trustees. Two had been co-opted during the year: Nyssa Hutchings and Penny Scott-Bayfield. And we said goodbye to Lauren Mackenzie who resigned as a Trustee – she couldn’t stay on the Board now she is joining the staff. As you may know, OYT South has a rule that where possible we must have a Trustee aged under 25, in the same age range as our service users, so, taking over from Lauren as Youth Trustee, we are delighted to welcome Sara Abdur! Sara has been sailing and volunteering with us since 2019, and has just completed a short contract as Staff Cadet on board. She says: “My first voyage as a young person back in 2019 has completely changed the direction I have taken in life: what led me to come back initially was my love for sailing and the sense of community I found within the OYT South crew. Since then, I have both volunteered and worked onboard for long periods of time which has helped me see just how important what we do is. Looking back I can see that not only have I nurtured my sailing skills but I have improved my confidence and self-worth as well. Every day I can see that each voyage means something special to these young people – just as special as it was to me a couple of years ago.”
We then had a review of the year which looked at some of the fantastic outcomes and feedback we have enjoyed, and thanked all those who have helped to make it possible, before more than thirty people adjourned to Kutis for a curry!
* Facts and figures from the 2022 sailing season
We ran a full programme of 39 voyages and 8 day sails from March to November (last year 23 voyages and 2 day sails in a short season, and the year before nothing at all). We only lost a voyage and a half to Covid.
We filled 549 of the 597 berths we were offering this year (92% of available berths) – we actually had clients allocated to 99% of places but of course some clients want an exclusive booking even if they don’t have young people to fill every berth, and then we have continued to ask for pre-voyage Covid testing and that brought a number of last-minute dropouts.
Prolific sailed 4,745 nautical miles during the sailing season, compared with 2,335 miles during the short 2021 season. And 12 miles in 2020 – on the shakedown voyage!
69% of these berths in total come under the disadvantaged heading – young people plus any carers, support workers etc who were essential for people to sail.
We subsidise all voyages for young people, but 160 individuals were allocated additional bursary funding thanks to OYT South’s generous donors, either because they had some disadvantage or in a few cases, with donors’ permission, as members of our trainee volunteer programme who needed experience to work towards watchleader or bosun qualifications.
488 berths in total were filled by people aged 25 or under, including staff, volunteers and crew.
276 people earned RYA Start Yachting certificates, and 82 earned the more advanced RYA Competent Crew certificate. This is really important as the figures will include significant numbers of young people who struggle with academic qualifications and can use this to demonstrate all sorts of other skills – teamworking, communication, ability to cope with new experiences and follow safety instructions, to learn practical skills, to get out of bed on time and much more!
Huge thanks to everyone who put so much effort into making this such a successful season with fantastic feedback from young people, parents and clients!
* Winter refit news – and help needed
Busy times at refit – including an incredible turnout of 23 people all working over the weekend!
Josh has been working hard with BD Marine on the prop shaft and seal; and meanwhile everyone else helped to clear all the sails, ropes and blocks off the boat; got the store organised; sanded the white work and superstructure on deck; and when the weather wasn’t ideal for deck work, got the heads prepared for sanding and painting, and cleaned the bilges.
Huge thanks to the core team of Holly, Josh, Lauren, Sara and Aaron Arnold, plus Iori Kent, Penny Scott-Bayfield, Unity Bowns, Jake Mitchener, Nige Bush, Gary Wakefield, William Robinson, Mary Birch, Sandy Garrity, Rob Jelley, Brigid Stoney, Teresa Binks, Sarah Peachey, Jim Borrows, Richard White, John Hicks, Chris Burns, Jonathan Pinnock and Aoife Harrington!
We will need LOTS more help in the coming weeks and months. There is plenty to do on board Prolific – moving gear off the boat, cleaning, testing and servicing, repairing and maintaining. Some jobs are highly skilled, others are entirely unskilled, and in between are some jobs we can teach if you have never done them – who wants to learn to service a winch, for example?
We are mainly looking for people to help on weekdays (we will announce in future newsletters if we plan any more weekends when volunteers can come along). Email refit @oytsouth.org if you have any free time in November or December and would like to come and lend a hand. Sea staff – don’t forget that if we have multiple applications for popular voyages next year, priority goes to people who have helped the charity in other ways – coming to refit, raising money, introducing new clients etc. Helping at refit is also a great way to learn about bits of the boat you might not see during the season – and it’s always fun and sociable too!
* February shorebased training weekend for volunteers – more details
The usual shorebased training weekend for volunteers has now been CONFIRMED for February 11th and 12th. There will definitely be an RYA one-day first aid course on the Sunday, and a second on the Saturday if we have sufficient demand.
We can also run GMDSS assessments (for your radio licence) – this involves an online course which MUST be completed in advance, with a practical session and exam on the day.
And on Saturday we have two excellent half-day courses planned.
On Saturday morning we have Dr Emily Setty, a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Surrey. Her research focuses on young people’s experiences of risk and harm online and the interconnections between their online experiences and their offline lives and realities. This interactive and participatory session will explore the nature of young people’s contemporary online lives, focusing on both what they are encountering and how they are acting online. The session will cover latest evidence on the types of spaces in which young people are participating and interacting online (including, in particular, social media and gaming sites and platforms) and the different risks, harms, opportunities and benefits of being online as perceived and experienced by young people. It will provide a broad overview of the different issues and challenges they face, with discussion of matters such as online misogyny and other forms of ‘online hate’, self-harm and suicide-related content, ‘cyber-bullying’, sexual image sharing and pornography, ‘influencer culture’, pro-thinness and eating disorder content, mis/disinformation and ‘fake news’, digital footprints, privacy and ‘cancel culture’, among others. The session will include myth busting about the realities of young people’s online lives and will foreground their voices regarding the problems that need to be addressed and how they want to be informed and supported by the adults in their lives. Importantly, it will provide context to young people’s online lives; while it will be shown that young people’s lives have changed because of internet technologies, the session will discuss the ways in which the risks and harms often reflects whatever is going on offline for young people and feeds back into their offline lives, cultures and experiences. The session will avoid unduly negative or fear-inducing approaches to understanding young people’s online lives and will offer evidence-based and constructive ways of intervening to enable young people to develop as ‘digital citizens’ in the contemporary era.
On Saturday afternoon we have a session with Robbie Crow on disability awareness. Robbie says: “Disabled people make up over 20% of the UK population which means it’s likely that at least 20% of the young people we sail with in future will identify as disabled. Views of disability have changed over time and have shifted not to view people’s impairments as the challenges, but barriers that are placed in disabled people’s way. This half-day disability equality course will look at the concepts of disability, equality, inclusion, and accessibility and equip attendees with the skills and tools needed to support disabled young people on OYT South voyages, no matter their impairments. Please come along with an open mind and with any questions you might have about disability – no question is silly!”
Robbie Crow has been registered blind since birth and is a lifelong disabled person. The first half of his life was lived believing that his eyesight was the problem and that ‘he’ had to change in order to perform well – but that all changed when he discovered the social model of disability. A recovering sail trainer, Robbie now works in Government following a successful career in the charity and disability sector – including with the Jubilee Sailing Trust – and introduced the now annual MACS voyages that OYT South runs when he was Chair of MACS. Robbie has previously spoken at the United Nations on disability equality and has a wealth of experience advocating for the rights of disabled people, UK wide. Robbie will also be accompanied by his 4-year-old golden lab guide dog, which is probably the main reason you should sign up for the course…
We have the venue available for an extra course or two half-day courses on Sunday – if you are a trainer who can offer a session on any topic that might be of use to our volunteers and staff, or if you are a volunteer with an idea for something you would like to learn more about, contact caroline.white@oytsouth.org.
Prices to be confirmed but we’re aiming for something around £80 for first aid, including room hire, instructor and first aid handbooks, and £30 for the whole day on Saturday to do both the online and disability awareness sessions. GMDSS costs £40 plus a separate £60 exam fee payable to the RYA; and any Sunday courses to be confirmed. Lunches either day £5; Saturday dinner £15; Sunday breakfast £5.
We’ll share the usual booking and payment form as soon as everything is finalised but in the meantime, please do email caroline.white@oytsouth.org to reserve places on your chosen courses and dates.
Sara’s leaving present – please donate now!
Sara’s fund hasn’t been open for as long as Holly’s so we are going to leave it open for a bit longer – if you have enjoyed sailing with Sara and have benefitted from all her energy and enthusiasm then please do put a little in the fund! Please donate here.
Sara Abdur is leaving the staff team after a fantastic few months sailing on a short contract as Staff Cadet. She is going to stay involved as a volunteer so we won’t be losing touch. She has made enormous progress in a few months and has been a valuable and popular member of the team: it’s been a great pleasure to have her on board.
* Holly’s leaving present – last chance to donate
Holly’s leaving present fund has been open for some time and a lot of people have contributed so we should be able to send her off with something nice. If there’s anyone else who does want to contribute then you can find all the details for her leaving present here.
Holly has been with us for two years as Staff Skipper – as well as many years of volunteering and a season as Sailing Support Officer, having first sailed with us as a young crew member in 2012. She has played a tremendous part in the success of the charity, especially as we returned to work after losing a season and a half to Covid. We have received a great deal of fantastic feedback from voyages which Holly has skippered. She is a great sailor with a fantastic talent for working with young people, and she has contributed so much to OYT South in so many ways since she first became involved as a young crew member.
* 2023 voyages available for young people
A few minor changes as we have been adjusting dates to suit clients!
Dates open for individual bookings are as follows. Please state your age when applying – we can sail with young people aged 11-25 but we aim to organise compatible groups and not have too wide an age range on any voyage.
7-11 April 2023, Southampton, 4 nights, £475
20-26 July 2023, Falmouth to Brixham, 6 nights, £675
9-15 Aug 2023, 6 nights, Brixham, £675
16-22 Aug 2023, 6 nights, Brixham, £675
29 Aug-3 Sept 2023, 5 nights, Poole to Southampton, £575
There is also a voyage 5-10 Sept out of Southampton aimed at people aged 16-25 who have already sailed with us and been recommended to train as volunteers to sail on future voyage. Places on this voyage are by invitation only but if you would like to be considered, please email us.
We’re happy to take smaller groups (e.g. three or four people) on individual voyages to mix with others; but many clients will want to book the whole boat exclusively for their own group (twelve to fifteen people, including any adult leaders who come with the group). Dates available for whole-boat bookings:
12-16 April 2023, 4 nights, Southampton, £475 per person
30 April-5 May 2023, 5 nights, Southampton, £575 per person
14-19 May 2023, 5 nights, Southampton, £575 per person
5-10 July 2023, 5 nights, Poole to Brixham, £575 per person
9-14 Oct 2023, 5 nights, Southampton, £575 per person.
Contact webmaster1@oytsouth.org to express an interest.
2023 adult voyages and volunteer training
We have adult voyages scheduled as follows:
5-7 May 2023, Southampton, 2 nights, age range 18+, £245 per person, adult weekend voyage (Friday evening to Sunday evening).
11-15 Sept 2023, Southampton, 4 nights, age range 18+, £475, adult week (Monday to Friday).
22-24 Sept 2023, Southampton, 2 nights, age range 18+, £245 per person, adult weekend voyage (Friday evening to Sunday evening).
These are open to anyone aged 18+ but priority will be given to people who are interested in finding out more about volunteering with the charity and potentially hoping to use the voyage to earn a recommendation for volunteer training (especially those who have not had the opportunity to earn a recommendation on a youth voyage), as well as current volunteers looking for some extra training on a voyage where they can focus on their own skills without the responsibility of supervising young people at the same time.
* Volunteer sea staff bids for 2023
We won’t be able to sort out the volunteer rota for next year until after Christmas, but by all means start sending in your bids so we have everything ready when we sit down to draw up the lists!
If you want to sail as a volunteer in 2023, you can now start sending in details of when you are available and how much time you can spare – but please read the rest of this section before doing so!
We need to start by doing the relief skipper and volunteer first mate bookings and some essential training and assessment voyages for key people, as a priority. After that we will move on to other bookings.
Qualified sea staff (anyone who has previously sailed with us as a watchleader, bosun or engineer) – ideally please give us voyage numbers of anything you would like to do (see here for voyage numbers); or give us names of any regular clients you’d particularly like to sail with; or simply tell us the maximum number of days you can offer in 2023 and any times of year you can or can’t manage. Please be specific: “voyages in university holidays” only works if you tell us your exact holiday dates!
If you have NOT yet had a recommendation from our skipper to join our sea staff, then you need to do a training/selection voyage first, and the next step depends on your age. If you are aged 16 or 17 then you need to book on any standard youth voyage and aim to get your recommendation there. If you are aged over 25 you will need to get your recommendation on an adult training voyage – see above (open to people aged 18+). If you are aged 18-25 you have a choice and you can use either a youth or an adult voyage to try and earn your recommendation.
If you have already had a skipper’s recommendation (which means that EITHER you have sailed on a youth voyage and been told at the end that you have been recommended to come back for bosun or watchleader training, or you have done an adult voyage and been given a recommendation at the end) but are not yet an assessed and qualified member of sea staff, your next step is to sail on a youth voyage of four nights or more, for further training and assessment. Not all voyages are suitable for this but please send in details of your availability and we’ll aim to match you with an appropriate voyage.
Please note that we DO need you to send in details of when you can sail and how much time you can offer – please DON’T email to ask what voyage dates are available. The reasons for this are complicated but we will try to explain the process just to help people understand how complex it is for us to get the volunteer bookings organised!
Essentially, it’s not simply a question of finding dates that work for individuals and then just booking you. What we have to do is put together a TEAM of staff and volunteers for each voyage, with a skipper, 1M, 2M, 3M, bosun and/or engineer and often but not always a trainee mate or bosun, and we can’t book anyone until we have at least some idea of who else is going to make up each team. For example, at least one adult on each voyage must be a woman, if there are girls in the crew; and then we have to think about special skills if the group includes people with disabilities or challenging behaviour. We also don’t want to end up with a voyage where too many of the volunteers are all newly-qualified at their particular level – each trip should include some people who are comfortable and familiar in their roles and therefore hopefully able to support those who are new to it. Then sometimes the client will be a school or charity where a staff member has qualified or wants to qualify as a volunteer, so needs a staff berth. Meanwhile, some client groups are just not suitable for brand-new trainee mates. Plus we have to think about some priority bookings (e.g. people who have been identified as potential first mates or skippers, if we can give them enough time on the boat). And we do promise that people who help the most with other things like refit or raising money or introducing us to new clients will be higher up the list to get their choice of voyages.
On top of all that we want to try to be fair to all our volunteers and make sure everyone gets at least a voyage or two! No point confirming voyages for someone who is really flexible only to find that they have taken the only dates that would have worked for someone else who has limited availability.
We hope that explains things for you – we really need to get bids in from as many people as possible before we can start the allocation process and it will take until January before we can start confirming bookings for every voyage. If you really need an answer more quickly than that then please tell us your deadline and we will do our best for you.
Once the main round of allocations is completed we will advertise any remaining gaps, but you may find there’s not a lot of choice at that stage. Please send bids or questions to webmaster1@oytsouth.org.
Chris Ellis Award – win £££s off the price of your next voyage!
Now open for 2022 entries.
If you have enjoyed a voyage with OYT South and want to come again (and are aged 11-25), please think about entering for this award. You can win up to £500 off the price of another voyage, by sending in an account of a voyage you have already done with us. It can be a logbook, diary, story, pictures, video – anything which gives the judges an idea of why you had a good time and would like to come again. The prize is judged at the end of each season and the award can be spent on a voyage the following year. Entries should be emailed to webmaster1@oytsouth.org or posted to the office. See here for more details of this award, which was set up in memory of the charity’s founder. You can also see some previous winning entries.
* Financial appeal
Huge thanks this week to the Geoff Herrington Foundation and the Peter Dixon Mohawk Voyage Fund for very generous donations towards next year’s bursaries; to the estate of the late Roger Grimshaw (former skipper and governor of OYC) for notice of a legacy; and to Wembury Sailing Club and Andy Brown for a kind contribution to bursaries. Big thanks also to Jonathan Pinnock (JP) who kindly scrapped our old batteries and got £260 for the charity!
We need a regular flow of funds to cover at least three major areas: bursaries for young people who could not otherwise afford to sail; vessel maintenance and equipment; and staff salaries – please help, or pass on our details to anyone you come across who might make a grant, large or small.
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.
Oysterband – Portsmouth 30th November
Some of you know that OYT South’s Business Manager, Caz, has a sideline touring as merchandiser with Oysterband who are long-standing friends to OYT South (see pic of three band members visiting us in Ocean Village) and just for once the band has a local gig at a time when the boat is not at sea: Portsmouth on 30th November – do come along! (If you don’t know the music, Oysterband spent several weeks at no 1 in the UK folk chart this year … but it’s not the quiet contemplative brand of folk …)
Movement for Good Awards – PLEASE nominate us for the December draw and share the link!
We weren’t lucky in the September draw – but please nominate us now for the December draw for funding from Movement for Good! Even if you nominated us for a previous draw you can do so again.
Several times in the past we have been successful with these awards and we have had significant sums to spend on our work with young people, but it really does require as many people as possible to nominate us and to share this post and encourage others to help – it’s incredibly quick and easy! We weren’t lucky in the June draw but that’s all the more reason to keep on nominating us for the next draw.
Go to https://movementforgood.com/ecclesiastical and click Nominate Now. In the box “search for charity name or number”, put Ocean Youth Trust South or 1079959 and select “education and skills” under “charity type”. Fill in your own details and that’s it – it takes seconds!
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.
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.
Raise funds for OYT South if you’re shopping online – we’ve made over £1,100 through Easyfundraising!
“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!”
We have already raised more than £1,100 through Easyfundraising – huge thanks to everyone who has used it!
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.org 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.