In this Bulletin
Sections which have changed since last time marked *
- * 750th issue of this newsletter
- * Refit news – help needed
- * Shorebased training weekend – 26-27 February – book now!
- * Recognising domestic abuse – training session
- Playing games on board Prolific
- * 2022 volunteer sea staff bookings
- South Coast Boat Show 6-8 May – volunteers needed
- Core refit team needed
- * 2022 voyage availability – individual bookings
- * 2022 voyage availability – group bookings
- * 2022 adult voyages and volunteer training – ONE place available for April weekend
- * Financial appeal
- Painting of Prolific – prints available to buy!
- * Raise funds for OYT South if you’re shopping online– our Easyfundraising donations now come to more than £900!
- 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
* 750th issue of this newsletter
Hard to believe but this really is the 750th edition of this newsletter, since it started in 2003! If anyone wants to claim to have read every single one, you can have a special mention in the next issue!
* Refit news – help needed
Big thanks this week to Holly, Josh, Georgia, Iori, Jenn Rogers, Michelle van den Bergh, Martin Bayfield, Allen Swift, John Hicks and Mike Stephenson for lots of hard work at refit.
This anchor is being raised not lowered … these pictures show Prolific’s anchor being brought back on board … rather than a doomed attempt to moor ourselves to the car park! (Thanks to Martin Bayfield for the photos):
The team has also painted the bulwarks, replaced a battery charger and otherwise dealt with a multitude of tasks as they work towards the re-launch.
Over the coming weeks, the major time-consuming work is all about sanding and painting, which is a great job for lots of volunteers. We are still being slightly cautious about numbers of volunteers at refit because of Covid, which means NO volunteers’ weekends for the moment; but if you are interested in helping out, please call the boat on 07990 518915 or email refit@oytsouth.org to discuss plans with Holly – she will be delighted to see willing helpers as long as she feels it can all be managed safely.
* Shorebased training weekend – 26-27 February – book now!
Covid permitting, we are still hoping for a normal face-to-face shorebased training weekend in Gosport at the end of this month.
We should have confirmed places for everyone who had asked, and you should have received a link to the booking form and payment options – let us know if you think you have reserved a place on a course and haven’t received this!
There is still room for more people to join us for courses – see here for details. There are definitely still spaces for the youthwork day on Saturday or for more people to do the GMDSS assessment for their radio licence (preferably Saturday though there may be space on Sunday). There are definitely still spaces for the youthwork day on Saturday or for more people to do the GMDSS assessment for their radio licence (preferably Saturday though there may be space on Sunday). The radar / e-nav course is full; but there MAY be one space for first aid. All details and prices are on the website and you can book meals over the weekend as well as courses.
* Recognising domestic abuse – training session
The first session on the Saturday youthwork day at the training weekend is shaping up to be a really interesting hour on recognising signs of domestic abuse and giving young people appropriate support on board.
This is a significant issue among young people who may have limited experience of relationships and may not consider their relationship abusive: some behaviours, like sharing inappropriate images online, are unfortunately so common that some young people may consider this a normal part of a relationship; or someone may be thinking “He loves me so much – that’s why he doesn’t like me going out without him.” Do come along to the training weekend for Anjelica Finnegan’s session on how we can recognise a problem and what we can do about it.
Playing games on board Prolific
Many young people remember the games they play on board Prolific as one of the most fun aspects of a voyage – whether filling a spare hour in the evening, or keeping people happy when we are stuck due to bad weather.
If you are a volunteer on board Prolific – whether you are a 16-year-old trainee bosun, or an experienced watchleader – how do you feel if you are asked to take charge of organising those games? Do you gleefully go off to find a box of After Eights or a slightly overripe banana or some sheets of paper and an oven tray full of water? Or do you find yourself nervously hoping someone else will offer to run a game?
We really need all our volunteers to have a few games and activities up their sleeves. Maybe other sea staff are busy with a maintenance issue or supporting a crew member who is unwell, and it really is down to you. So if you would like to make sure you have at least one or two activities you feel happy and confident about running, please book on the games course at our training weekend. You may be a brilliant watchleader on deck, or a super-efficient bosun, but if you can’t run a game which keeps up to 15 young people happily engaged. you really are missing an important skill for sail training.
And if you love playing games on board, please book on the course too and come and show others just how much fun it can be! The course will also help you understand why certain games work and what the young people get out of it.
* 2022 volunteer sea staff bookings
A couple of voyages particularly needing volunteers after people were unable to accept places offered in the main round of allocations:
3 – 9 August, Brixham – second mate or experienced third mate needed for a voyage with the MACS group of visually-impaired young people.
30 Aug – 4 Sept (preferably also including maintenance day on 5th Sept), Poole to Southampton – second mate needed.
Other vacancies will be advertised in this newsletter in due course, but the first priority is to sort out gaps where we still need experienced, qualified people who are familiar with Prolific in order to run the voyage.
However, is there a trainee mate or bosun already booked for something who would consider a swap with the voyage 24-27 Sept? The person who was offered those dates can no longer do it and has been left without much sailing!
South Coast Boat Show 6-8 May – volunteers needed
The South Coast Boat Show will be taking place in Ocean Village over the weekend of 6-8 May. Prolific will once again be at the heart of the show, providing tea, coffee and bacon rolls to the public in exchange for donations to the charity. We also hope to have a reception for exhibitors on board on Saturday evening.
We will need a good team of volunteers on Friday afternoon, Saturday and Sunday, to get the boat ready with the deck awnings up plus flags and bunting, and then working in the galley to make drinks and bacon rolls, or showing people round the boat and talking to them about the work of the charity. It would be good to have some sea staff on board but also at least a couple of under-18s who have sailed with us and are happy to talk to people about what the experience was like.
Email webmaster1@oytsouth.org if you would like to be involved.
Core refit team needed
We would still be happy to add one more volunteer to our full-time core team until the end of the refit in March – there is a lot of sanding and painting to be done!
This is something we’ve been doing since at least 2002: a small full-time team offers continuity alongside all the other volunteers who come for odd days or weekends. We provide free food and accommodation for the core team as well as great experience in boat maintenance and a chance to make a real difference to a good cause while enjoying a sociable winter in the team. Many previous core team members are still great friends of the charity – some still sailing with us, others using the experience to help develop their careers. If you want to follow in the footsteps of Jake, Oran and Ian from the last full-time core team, as well as Iori who is doing the full refit this year, and all the others who have gone before them, please see here for details and how to apply.
* 2022 voyage availability – individual bookings
We are taking individual bookings for young people on the following voyages (see following sections for group voyages and adult voyages):
15-19 April, Southampton, 4 nights, £425 – possibly just ONE place left!
9-15 July, Poole tbc to Brixham, 6 nights, £625 – possibly just ONE place left!
23-27 July, Brixham, 4 nights, £425 – filling up fast!
NEW 10-16 Aug, Brixham, 6 nights, £625
17-23 Aug, Brixham, 6 nights, £625
24-29 Aug, Brixham to Poole tbc, 5 nights, £525
30 Aug – 4 Sept, Poole tbc to Southampton, 5 nights, £525 – may be full unless we can add extra places – please ask!
21-25 Oct, Southampton, 4 nights, £410 (voyage starts later on Friday so people can join after schools break up for half term)
If you are interested in any of these dates. email webmaster1@oytsouth.org stating the age of the person who will be sailing. Our voyages can be open to people aged 11-25 but in practice we aim to divide people into compatible groups and not have 11-year-olds and 25-year-olds sailing together. If you are around the middle of the age range, any voyage on the list could work, but for younger or older people we will advise if your chosen date looks appropriate or not – sometimes it is hard to be sure until we have a reasonable number of enquiries.
If none of these dates are suitable, then we MAY also open up the following voyage to individual bookings, depending on the levels of demand for individual mixed voyages versus group voyages. So do let us know if you would be interested in a place on this voyage once the decision is made:
2-8 July, Southampton to Poole, 6 nights, £625
People who are aged 18-25 can apply for places on youth voyages but would also be eligible for adult voyages (18+ with no upper age limit).
* 2022 voyage voyage availability – group bookings
These dates are still available for group bookings (usually at least 12 people, which may be all young people but can include adult leaders). Please email webmaster1@oytsouth.org a.s.a.p. to discuss the requirements for your group.
2-8 July, Southampton to Poole, 6 nights, £625 per person (this voyage may be made available for individual bookings if it is not required for a group)
10-15 Oct, Southampton, 5 nights, £525 per person
* 2022 adult voyages and volunteer training – ONE place available for April weekend
We have adult voyages scheduled as follows:
1-3 April 2022, Southampton, 2 nights, age range 18+, £215 per person, adult weekend voyage (Friday evening to Sunday evening). ONE space now available.
12-16 Sept 2022, Southampton, 4 nights, age range 18+, £425, adult week (Monday to Friday).
7-9 Oct 2022, Southampton, 2 nights, age range 18+, £215 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.
Email webmaster1@oytsouth.org if you are interested in an adult berth.
In addition, as we did in 2021, we have earmarked a special training voyage for young volunteers aged 16-25. This will run from 6-11 September and will be largely filled by invitation: we will be looking for young people who have excelled on a youth voyage and have great potential as volunteers, or people who have recently started sailing as young volunteers and whose training we are investing in for the future of the charity. We will be aiming to raise funds to make this voyage as affordable as possible: the priority is to focus on the best young people who could be part of the charity for years to come and will make it possible for us to sail with hundreds of other young people in future. Although we will be inviting people to join this voyage, if you would like to be considered, you can ask the skipper on any other voyage if they would recommend you, or you can email webmaster1@oytsouth.org asking to be considered. If not all the places are filled with young volunteers, we may open up a few places to others in the same age range who don’t mind getting involved while others practise their leadership skills.
* Financial appeal
Huge thanks this week to Jonathan Pinnock (JP) and to John Hicks for very kind donations!
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.
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:
Anyone outside the UK wanting to order a copy, please email us.
* Raise funds for OYT South if you’re shopping online – our Easyfundraising donations now come to more than £900!
“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 £900 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.