In this Bulletin
Sections which have changed since last time marked *
- Sally Croly leaving NEXT WEEK after 20 years! – please contribute to her leaving present or write a message for her leaving card
- * Voyage news
- * Mental Health Awareness week 2023 – #SailToWellbeing
- Vessel tracking – see where Prolfiic is sailing!
- * 2023 voyages available for young people
- 2023 adult voyages and volunteer training – does anyone not eligible for youth voyages want to sail our beautiful boat?
- * Sea staff vacancies
- Volunteer introduction videos – more now ready for you to watch!
- Volunteer quotes on website
- Movement for Good Awards – please nominate us to win £1,000
- Financial appeal
- Raise funds for OYT South if you’re shopping online – we’ve made over £1,400 through Easyfundraising!
- OYT South social media – please share as well as liking!
- * Maintenance days
- Website – Raise and Sail – help needed
- Branded clothing
- New readers’ welcome and introduction
- Receiving this newsletter by email
Sally Croly leaving NEXT WEEK after 20 years! – please contribute to her leaving present or write a message for her leaving card
Our Finance Manager Sally Croly is leaving and there’s not long left to contribute to her leaving present!
You can also send a message to AnnettePotter@oytsouth.org if you want to put something in Sally’s leaving card.
Sally has been with OYT South since 2003, moving up from part-time administration assistant to a full-time role running the office. In 2018 she went back down to part-time hours with a greater focus on the finance side.
Sadly she has now decided that it is time to stop working and she will be leaving her job at the end of May. Though she is keen to stress that she will continue to be very much around as a friend and supporter of the charity and of all the people around OYT South!
Sally has been involved with the charity for twenty years – almost the entire span of OYT South’s existence as an independent charity, and a third of our entire existence since the Ocean Youth Club was founded in 1960. She always gave the most steadfast and reliable support when the charity faced challenges, and she played a huge part in the best of times as well.
Sally might not have been the most high-profile member of our staff and she never wanted the limelight, but the smooth running of the office for so many years was down to her: paying bills on time, managing bookings efficiently and always there to support the rest of the team. She has been an absolutely fundamental part of everything the charity has done for two decades – which means that more than 8,000 young people have benefitted from her efforts.
Everyone has loved working with Sally and we all depended on her support, help, guidance, honesty, and good humour.
She will be missed more than we can say, and we really want to send her off with a nice leaving present, so please give generously – details and a payment link here!
* Voyage news
Last week’s newsletter ended just as we were completing our voyage with students from Alfreton Park School for young people with physical and learning disabilities, plus adult carers. You might like to see some of their feedback:
One person’s most lasting memory was “helming the ship with his captain’s hat on”, and another’s best bit was “being on the boat itself”, while a third said “I’m grateful for the adventure and fish and chips!” One of the carers said: “I think the most memorable has been the shared experience of when we go back to school we have that connection, a deeper connection with everyone because we have all had this shared experience. Thank you”, and another said “I liked waking up and seeing everybody’s smiling faces and during the week the confidence in all the students, I loved that”, while a third added: “I particularly enjoyed when everyone ate their meals together as a family, all the staff, obviously the teachers, and the children, I particularly enjoyed that and have the fondest memories of being a big happy family.”
Saturday was a maintenance day – big thanks to Diggory, Josh, Graeme Cole, Rob Jelley, and Nathan whom we met at the South Coast Boat Show. Nathan and Rob oiled the capping rail and it now looks lovely! The team also caught up with routine maintenance on a glorious sunny day with ice cream breaks … Diggory says: “Seriously everyone, you need to get involved in the next maintenance day – it was such a joyful day!”
On Sunday we were joined by another group from Greig City Academy in Haringey – the third group of the year!
They arrived on Sunday and went down to Cowes on the first night. On Monday they had one of those rare almost perfect sails: force 5 on the beam, flat water, fast sailing, no-one seasick, all the way to Weymouth.
They had shore leave – one of the crew had never been to a beach before.
On Tuesday they went to anchor in Ringstead Bay where they ate fishfinger sandwiches and admired the views:
The young people took on the challenge of getting off the anchor under sail, and they had a nice evening sail to Portland and a magical walk on the beach:
They set off late on Wednesday after a very close encounter with a dolphin in Portland, and had a lovely gentle sail to the Solent, and a late arrival into Cowes.
Yesterday morning they had shore leave (it’s possible there are no knick-knacks left to purchase in Cowes and the island will need to re-stock following our visit):
Yesterday they headed out for some sail training in the western Solent before anchoring for dinner and enjoying a night sail back to Ocean Village where the voyage ended today. Two people who had been before earned RYA Competent Crew certificates; all the others completed the RYA Start Yachting qualification. They sailed 150 miles with a maximum wind force if 6. You can see the full voyage track here. Huge thanks to the sea staff Diggory, Josh, Graeme Cole, Martyn Powe and Lucinda Neall.
* Mental Health Awareness week 2023 – #SailToWellbeing
This is Mental Health Awareness week – a subject that lies at the heart of our work, especially since the pandemic and seeing the lasting impact on young people’s wellbeing.
We have our five-step #SailToWellbeing programme, based on research endorsed by the NHS and MIND: five simple steps which are proven to help with mental and physical wellbeing, each of which is a natural part of a sail training voyage:
- Connect with other people
- Be physically active
- Take notice and pay attention to the present moment
- Learn new skills
- Give to others
On social media this week we have been looking at these steps each day in turn with our Greig City Academy crew. You can also read lots of examples on our #SailToWellbeing page of how each of these five steps can be put into practice on board.
Vessel tracking – see where Prolific is sailing!
Don’t forget you can always have a look and see where Prolific is sailing.
If you discover that Prolific is in a harbour somewhere near you, please come and say hello. Sometimes you may be just what we need if you have local information or a bit of time to spare to help with something, or a car for running a quick errand!
Big thanks to the Graham High Charity who sponsor our vessel tracking.
* 2023 voyages available for young people
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.
5-10 July 2023, 5 nights, Poole to Brixham, £575 per person
20-26 July 2023, Falmouth to Brixham, 6 nights, £675 – this one is filling very fast!
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
5-10 Sept 2023, Southampton, 5 nights, £575 – places available for people aged 16-25 to join a voyage with some of our young volunteers – please ask for more details. Please note that there is a chance this voyage may run 4-9 Sept or 5-9 Sept instead.
Contact webmaster1@oytsouth.org to express an interest.
2023 adult voyages and volunteer training – does anyone not eligible for youth voyages want to sail our beautiful boat?
We have adult voyages scheduled as follows:
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.
Email webmaster1@oytsouth.org to reserve a place on an adult voyage.
* Sea staff vacancies
Just a few possible spaces left for volunteer watchleaders and bosuns – can anyone help? Some of these are definite gaps; others are where people have alerted me that they MAY need to drop out and we want to have a reserve in mind:
- 18-22 Sept, Southampton – another watchleader, bosun or trainee volunteer possibly needed.
- 25-29 Sept, Southampton – one more person needed, could be ideal for trainee watchleader or bosun. The crew for this voyage come from Cowes and sea staff will move the boat over to Cowes to pick them up, and then bring Prolific back to Southampton after dropping them off at the end, so sea staff for this voyage MUST be available to join the day before and to stay until at least late evening on the last day.
Email caroline.white@oytsouth.org if you can help with one of these. And keep an eye on this section of the newsletter as the season goes on – sadly people do occasionally have to drop out of voyages and there might be other opportunities if you are a volunteer who wants to sail this year.
* Volunteer introduction videos – more now ready for you to watch!
It’s clear from some of our clients and also from one of the speakers at our training weekend back in February that one of the most daunting things for a lot of young crew members sailing with us for the first time, especially anyone who is neurodiverse, is not knowing anything about our team on board – it’s hard to go away for a week with strangers when you have no idea what to expect.
It’s been suggested that something that will really help us to have introductory videos from as many staff and volunteers as possible on our website. We’ve got quite a few here already for you to look at but we’d like lots more! Big thanks to everyone who has helped to get this started: and if you want to join them, you can film your own introduction on the boat if you like, but since this is mainly about young people getting to know you a bit before they sail, you can also film one at home if you like (and if you want to replace it later with something shot on board, that’s fine). About thirty seconds is plenty. Some of the paid staff have done longer videos but you’ll see that most of the volunteers are about that length, and we’re adding subtitles which are helpful to some young people too, so we don’t need anything too long as the subtitles take a while to type! We’ll be really grateful to anyone who can do one – email webmaster1@oytsouth.org when you have done yours and we’ll sort out the best way of getting it to us. Thank you!
Volunteer quotes on website
This might be ideal for any volunteers who really can’t face doing a video!
We’ve started a new page on the website where volunteers can explain why they enjoy volunteering for OYT South and what they get out of it. The idea is to encourage more people to think about volunteering for us in various different ways. At the moment the page only has examples from sea staff and refit volunteers (and we are happy to have more of those) but we would also like to add people who help in the office; people who raise funds or help us with events; volunteer Trustees; and anyone else who gives their time to support us. Please send your contributions to webmaster1@oytsouth.org. We’re happy to add photos too, if you have a good one of yourself in a volunteering capacity.
When anyone new enquires about volunteering with us, it would be great to send them a link to this page to show them that we have a wide variety of volunteers who have all sorts of reasons for being involved and get a lot out of it.
Movement for Good Awards – please nominate us to win £1,000
In June, 150 charities will each win £1,000, based on nominations from the public, through Movement for Good – please nominate us! If you follow that link and scroll down the page, you’ll come to a form already set to vote for us – you just have to add a few details and press the button at the bottom. It takes seconds!
We have been lucky enough to win a few times in the past but not recently, so PLEASE send in your nomination this time. £1,000 could provide voyages for two disadvantaged young people who wouldn’t otherwise be able to sail; or it could buy food for everyone on board for days, or a piece of equipment for the boat.
Financial appeal
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 we can claim back tax on your donation.
Raise funds for OYT South if you’re shopping online – we’ve made over £1,400 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 over £1,400 through Easyfundraising – huge thanks to everyone who has used it!
OYT South social media – please share as well as liking!
If you look at the top left of any page on our website, you can click on icons for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn. Please share our social media posts as widely as you can – with the help of all our supporters, this charity is doing some amazing work and we need more people to hear about it. You don’t need to do anything more than share a post, or perhaps add a comment which could be as simple as “I’ve sailed with this charity!” or “I volunteer for this charity!”.
Please note that OYT South has a policy that our adult staff and volunteers should not make or accept personal online connections 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.
* Maintenance days
If you’re missing refit, or feeling guilty because you weren’t around to help much, please come to one of our in-season maintenance days!
Saturday 10th June – Southampton
Tuesday 11th July – Brixham
Monday 4th September – Southampton
Sunday 15th October – Southampton
Just call the boat on 07990 518915 or email refit@oytsouth.org if you want to come and help.
Website – Raise and Sail – help needed
Although we have a brand-new website, one section that still needs work is to update Raise and Sail, which was designed many years ago by volunteers Fiona Keen and Emma Burrows as a stand-alone area of the site full of ideas and resources for young people who want to raise money in order to come sailing. We have a volunteer doing some work on this but others may be able to help too, if you have good ideas or experience of raising money. Email caroline.white@oytsouth.org if you would like to help.
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!
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 11-25, 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 11-25 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, mate 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.