In this Bulletin
Sections which have changed since last time marked *
- * February shorebased training weekend for volunteers – a few spaces left, especially first aid
- * Winter refit news – and help needed, including washing oilskins or transporting kit by van
- Website – Raise and Sail – help needed
- * 2023 voyages available for young people
- * Special voyage for young volunteers – could this be you?
- 2023 adult voyages and volunteer training
- * South Coast Boat Show – help needed 21-23 April
- Financial appeal
- Raise funds for OYT South if you’re shopping online – we’ve made nearly £1,200 through Easyfundraising! – but Amazon Smile to close
- OYT South social media – please get involved
- Branded clothing
- New readers’ welcome and introduction
- Receiving this newsletter by email
* February shorebased training weekend for volunteers – a few spaces left, especially first aid
All the planned courses at the training weekend February 11th and 12th now have enough people to go ahead! But there are still places available.
The full programme is:
Saturday: EITHER RYA First Aid OR a two-part day covering risk and harm online and disability awareness
Sunday: EITHER First Aid or a three-part day covering understanding autistic people, teaching RYA Start Yachting and Competent Crew on board; and a safeguarding update. Anyone wanting to do a GMDSS assessment could do it on the Sunday afternoon (missing part or all of the RYA and Safeguarding sessions).
See here for much more detail on all the courses, including course content, price, locations and timings.
We still have three spaces for Saturday First Aid and four for Sunday First Aid – we’d be happy to accept people who are not actively involved with OYT South on these courses as it will help to make it work for everyone, so if you know anyone needing an RYA first aid qualification, please ask them to get in touch.
The Sunday course on understanding autistic people is very nearly full. Other courses can still take a few more people.
Please email us to say what you would like to do!
Do have a look at the course details before you decide – the course titles alone don’t do justice to what should be really fascinating sessions involving superb instructors covering topics which will be of real value to the staff and volunteers who sail with us.
A few people have asked about accommodation for the training weekend. OYT South doesn’t have accommodation to offer, but sea staff who use the OYT South Sea Staff Facebook group can always post there and see if they can link up with others (e.g. to share an AirBnB). If you’re a member of Sea Staff without access to that group, send us a request!
* Winter refit news – and help needed
Big thanks this week to Lauren, Sara Abdur and Luca Magliozzi!
It’s been a cold week with lots of frost:
But the weather sometimes improved as each day went on, and the team still managed a day and a half of painting! They have finished the second coat on all the main white areas though still need to finish the inboard bowsprit and shed roof, and they also need to tackle the blue areas.
The team has also been taking stuff to the store:
They have been putting the winches back on (a really big step towards making Prolific look as though she could go sailing). They also managed to put the spare anchor back in the scuppers … without scratching the paintwork …
Luca also introduced the team to a card game called Cockroach Poker – something we’d like to have available to play on board during the season!
Help needed:
- Would anyone like to take some or all of the oilskins home to wash?
- Does anyone have a vehicle (van or similar) to take three deck boxes (each 202 x 49 x 61 cm) from Southampton to Dorset and back?
- If anyone would be free either the week of 6th February or weekdays at the start of March please email refit@oytsouth.org and Lauren will confirm with you nearer the time depending on what we can get done and what accommodation we can offer. (Huge thanks to everyone who’s signed up for our volunteer weekend!)
- Our own copy of Cockroach Poker!
- Sunshine!
Website – Raise and Sail – help needed
Regular readers will know that we are moving towards the launch of 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. On the new site we would love to have this much more integrated with the rest of the site, but the current content is very dated (not only because it features John Laing rather than Prolific). Would anyone like to take on the task of updating this ready for the new site? You might just go through the current site and amend things as needed, or you might have ideas for starting from scratch and providing useful resources in different ways.
OYT South has a significant bursaries fund to help young people who can’t afford the voyage fees: but the fund has limits and every bursary we give leaves less in the pot for everyone else. So we massively appreciate it when bursary applicants do something to raise part of the voyage fee for themselves, even if they can only manage a small amount. And of course we like to give bursaries to young people who have shown that they want to put in some effort and commitment! But if we can have something on our website which makes it easy for a young person to get started, that can make a big difference.
You don’t need to know anything about web design – just provide good content and we can upload it. This job might suit a team of people who can share ideas, and it would be great to include at least one young person with experience of trying to raise money through sponsored activities or similar. Email caroline.white@oytsouth.org if you would like to help.
* 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.
1-6 April 2023, Southampton, 5 nights, £575 – young people needed to mix with a group of 8 very deserving young award winners on this voyage. Bursary funding may be available for disadvantaged or vulnerable young people.
7-11 April 2023, Southampton, 4 nights, £475
5-10 July 2023, 5 nights, Poole to Brixham, £575 per person (this could be an individual OR group voyage depending on demand – please ask)
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
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:
30 April-3 May 2023, 3 nights, Southampton, £375 per person (NEW shorter voyage)
14-19 May 2023, 5 nights, Southampton, £575 per person
5-9 June 2023, 4 nights, Southampton, £475 per person
5-10 July 2023, 5 nights, Poole to Brixham, £575 per person (this could be an individual OR group voyage depending on demand – please ask)
9-14 Oct 2023, 5 nights, Southampton, £575 per person.
Contact webmaster1@oytsouth.org to express an interest.
* Special voyage for young volunteers – could this be you?
Thanks to a generous donation from the Gipsy Moth Trust, OYT South has an annual training voyage funded specifically for young people aged 16-25 who are starting to sail as volunteer watchleaders or bosuns, or who have been newly recommended to join our volunteers.
This year’s young volunteers’ training voyage will be 5-10 Sept, starting and finishing in Southampton. If you have sailed with us in the last year or two and have been invited back for volunteer training, or have recently started sailing as a trainee mate, third mate or bosun and you want to develop your skills and are aged 16-25, let us know if you would be interested in joining this voyage.
If you have not yet been told by one of our skippers that you are ready for volunteer training but you are hoping to earn a recommendation this year, you can contact us about going on the waiting list for the September voyage. Then if you come on another voyage before then and do well enough to earn your recommendation, you might get a place on the September voyage as well.
The September voyage is designed to get people thinking not just as another crew member but as someone who can start stepping up to leading, teaching, supervising and encouraging other young people. Around one in three of our volunteers on board is aged under 25 and started out as crew members on an ordinary voyage before coming back for more training and working their way up the ladder. It’s a lot of fun and it’s also great for your own personal development and providing evidence to future employers that you can stand out from the crowd and take on responsibility.
Here’s what people said about last year’s Gipsy Moth voyage:
“My favourite bit has just been really watching everyone throw themselves into leading stuff, it’s been really really impressive. But also how everyone else supported them when they were doing leading, that was really really good.”
“My memorable bit was when I was told I had to take down the mizzen and I had to lead it and I stressed myself out and I knocked my confidence by doubting myself and I was going like, ‘I can’t do it, I can’t do it,’ and then I done it and then Andy [first mate] took me to the side and he said, ‘you just did it, you can do it,’ and I think that was just like a really nice, just a really nice little chat”.
“My favourite bit this trip was probably how confident I became learning how all the sailing procedures work, and all the different ropes, whereas previous trips I’ve not been that familiar with how it all works, but I’m definitely a lot more confident with it all now.”
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.
Email webmaster1@oytsouth.org to reserve a place on an adult voyage.
* South Coast Boat Show – help needed 21-23 April
The South Coast Boat Show will be taking place in Ocean Village over the weekend of 21-23 April. 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 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.
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 (pdf) we can claim back tax on your donation.
Raise funds for OYT South if you’re shopping online – we’ve made nearly £1,200 through Easyfundraising! – but Amazon Smile to close
“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 almost £1,200 through Easyfundraising – huge thanks to everyone who has used it!
OYT South has also been receiving funds from Amazon Smile – but very sadly Amazon has just announced they are closing the scheme and in future will donate to charities chosen by the company rather than by you when you shop.
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!
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.