In this Bulletin
Sections which have changed since last time marked *
- * Voyage news
- * Sea staff vacancies
- * Volunteers Week
- * Winter refit core team needed
- * Crew needed for 60-mile passages
- 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?
- Volunteer introduction videos – have you done yours?
- 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 £1,500 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
* Voyage news
Last week’s newsletter described a lovely voyage with students from Park House School in Newbury. Here are some of their comments on the week:
“Best bit was probably exploring all the little towns and villages, when we got ashore and going around there, it was fun.”
“My best bit is probably, like the laughs we had with our watch, I feel like our watch really got on.”
“The best bit was getting a high five from Jonathan” (one of the sea staff)
“I enjoyed this trip because it brought people, who probably never spoke to anyone, together.”
“So much fun, so much better than I expected, loved swimming, so many memories. I do not regret anything. So many people met, best bit was the music. Thank you!!”
“Staff are good and clear to understand.”
After that we were joined by a brand-new client: 1st Finchampstead Scouts. They arrived on Friday night and had introductions and briefings before bed. On Saturday they made a long passage all the way to Portland, without much wind.
Watchleader Jack Dignan captured some fantastic drone footage as they passed the Needles:
They had time for showers ashore and games on board. The breeze picked up a bit on Sunday and they were able to tack to Poole.
Monday saw more tacking back into the Solent and up to Southampton, and the voyage ended on Tuesday morning after 141 nautical miles. There was plenty of enthusiasm from this crew, with people enjoying time on the bowsprit:
They also got into hoisting sails, enjoying the scenery and just having a good time on deck:
You can see the full voyage track here. All twelve of the Scouts earned RYA Start Yachting certificates. Big thanks to sea staff Andy Viney, Josh, Graeme Cole, Cathy Ayres, Jack Dignan, Graeme Findlay and Hannah Blyton.
This was the first crew to benefit from our new partnership with Saltee sunscreen – and it was certainly worthwhile as they enjoyed plenty of sunshine!
On Wednesday we met a new crew. Skipper Andy Brown writes:
“We started the voyage on Tuesday with a sail around to Stokes Bay in the Solent where we stood anchor watches overnight under a beautiful starlit sky. Just at sunset all the crew assembled on deck to see if we could catch the “Green Flash” as the sun went down but it did not show for us that evening.
The next morning we set off early to sail south of the Isle of Wight heading for Poole. The crew, a group of young people from Kent, quickly became a team hoisting the sails and learning to tack and gybe Prolific. The lookouts did a great job with one crew member claiming to have spotted a dolphin…. Or was it a crab pot buoy!
We are currently in Poole and having played the After Eights game last night, showers were very welcome in the marina this morning. The crew have decided (with the skipper’s agreement!) to sail towards Worbarrow Bay, hopefully for a BBQ this evening and to watch the sun go down and perhaps catch the “green flash”.
Tomorrow we will head back towards the Solent hopefully watching some powerboat racing as we head back towards Ocean Village. We have a great crew and some of the best sea staff and volunteers that OYT South has. The dream trip.”
It’s certainly keeping our volunteers happy in Volunteers Week!
Big thanks to sea staff Andy Brown, Lauren, Josh, Glyn Collins, Nige Bush, Rob Jelley and Hannah Blyton.
* Sea staff vacancies
We could do with a couple more volunteers for day sails on 17th and 18th June – would anyone like to join us? (Qualified or trainee watchleaders or bosuns, as long as your sea staff paperwork us up to date).
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.
* Volunteers Week
It’s #VolunteersWeek from 1-7 June, and a great chance to recognise the amazing contribution made by OYT South’s volunteers. The charity couldn’t operate without them and they make a huge difference to the lives of hundreds of young people each year. Volunteers get a huge amount out of the experience too.
We are enormously grateful to everyone who volunteers for us, on our voyages, at refit, in the office, as Trustees, raising funds and more.
See here for how to volunteer with us and see here for quotes from some of our volunteers explaining why they enjoy doing it!
* Winter refit core team needed
We haven’t yet finalised plans for Prolific’s winter refit 2023-24, but if you are planning a gap year, or you are between jobs or for any other reason potentially available for several weeks or months this winter, might you be interested in joining our full-time refit team? We may well need a couple of full-time volunteers between November and March. More details here. Plenty of our previous refit volunteers have gone on to great jobs in the marine industry – it really helps to have maintenance experience as well as good sailing skills when applying for sailing jobs! And any refit volunteers who want to sail in Prolific can be offered berths as watchleaders, bosuns, or relief engineers. So it’s a great way of developing useful experience, contributing to a good cause, securing free food and accommodation for a few months, and having a positive experience with a fun group of people! So if you’re interested, please read the web page and email us with the details requested at the bottom of the page.
* Crew needed for 60-mile passages
Many of you will know that before tackling an RYA Yachtmaster Exam, people need to complete a couple of 60-mile passages as skipper. One of our volunteer second mates, Tom Knight, is doing his from Weymouth with Martin Skipper on 12-17th June and one of the crew has dropped out. If anyone is available and would like to sail with Tom and Martin, please email caroline.white@oytsouth.org and we’ll pass it on. Please note this would be a private arrangement not an official OYT South voyage.
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 – just 4 places left
20-26 July 2023, Falmouth to Brixham, 6 nights, £675 – just 2 places left
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.
Volunteer introduction videos – have you done yours?
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
Big thanks this week to Kit Power for a very kind donation!
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 £1,500 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 £1,500 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
Please come to one of our in-season maintenance days! We can use both skilled and unskilled volunteers, and it all helps to keep the boat in good condition and to try and avoid losing any time on voyages to maintenance issues.
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.