In this Bulletin
Sections which have changed since last time marked *

• * Refit news and help needed
• * Farewell Jo Clark – Volunteer and Membership Manager
• * Volunteer sea staff bookings for 2025 – send in your bids BY 1^ST JANUARY! (Including people who earned new volunteer recommendations this year)
• * Training weekend in February – details
• Chris Ellis Award – win £££s of the price of your next voyage
• * Official Supporter of Pip Hare in the Vendée Globe race! 
• 2025 programme – bookings open for group and individual voyages
• * Financial appeal
• Prolific earrings and necklaces inspired by a crew member – ideal for Christmas!
• Raise funds for OYT South if you’re shopping online – we’ve made over £2,400 through Easyfundraising!
• OYT South social media – please share as well as liking!
• New readers’ welcome and introduction
• Receiving this newsletter by email

* Refit news and help needed
Refit is in full swing now, and there’s been plenty happening on board Prolific! The wonderful Di Roberts came down to the boat to help with our annual survey, and lots of preparations were made for the boat getting lifted out of the water.

Josh has been working hard on getting the tanks ready to be lifted out (a major task this year as we need to have access to the keel bolts so they can be checked), and a huge amount of work has gone into servicing and checking all of the winches – this involves taking each winch apart, cleaning it with white spirit, greasing and oiling the appropriate parts, putting it back together in the correct order, and ordering replacements for anything showing too much wear.

On 4^th December, Prolific was lifted out of the water, and is now in Saxon Wharf – huge thanks to MDL Marinas for their continuing support throughout our refit.

The team have assembled a scaffolding tower in order to reach the boat, and started working on preparing the hull for antifouling. This has included a great deal of scraping to remove the barnacles, and washing the hull. We have wonderful support from International Paint and their antifouling works brilliantly, but we haven’t antifouled for a few years and it is definitely time to do it again. The team will need lots of help to successfully re-apply antifoul to the hull, so stay tuned in the new year for volunteering opportunities to help with this!

Lots of other jobs have been being completed, such as removing the jackstays, sorting lifejackets, and meetings to discuss the rig (thank you Ross from Vortec Marine and Robbie from BSI). The team have also worked out on the bowsprit, started investigating the anchor tube, and even removed the fire cylinders!

Refit also involves lots of fun for the whole team: they enjoyed a delicious Christmas meal together on Monday evening:

Some went to see the band Police Dog Hogan (featuring our Trustee Eddie Bishop) perform live; and today have enjoyed some mince pies and mulled wine, courtesy of MDL!

A huge thank you to everyone who has helped with refit over the last two weeks – Gotch, Josh, Sara, our brilliant full-time volunteers Sasha Moyes and Seb Dickson, and also thank you to Anita van Nierop, Jamie McQuaid and Chris Pryke.

The team are going to try to make a regular series of short videos for TikTok and Facebook showing what they are up to – here’s today’s!

Refits go through cycles – some in the water, some out of the water, some with more technical work – and some, like this one, with a lot more labour-intensive jobs! We will REALLY need as much volunteer support as we can get, and there are jobs for skilled and unskilled people as well as those who want to learn. Refit volunteers normally need to be aged 18+ and you can come for a day, a weekend or much more (accommodation permitting). One thing to pencil into your diary now is a possible antifouling weekend 18-19 January when we will need a really big team – more on this as we get closer to the time.

More details about our refit here – please email refit@oytsouth.org for more information about how you can come and help, and to book yourself in. We aim to make it fun and sociable as well as getting through lots of work. And we’re always happy if anyone turns up with snacks and goodies!

For our sailing volunteers, refit is a chance to get to know bits of the boat you might not see during a normal voyage, and to improve your understanding of how things work. And where there are several volunteers all wanting to sail on the same voyages – especially the popular dates in the summer – then helping at refit (as well as raising money or introducing us to new bookings) is a great way to improve your chances of getting some of the voyages you want – we always try to recognise those who have helped us over the winter.

Back to index

* Farewell Jo Clark – Volunteer and Membership Manager
Very sadly we have to say goodbye to Jo who has been working for the charity since 2018 but has decided she needs to spend more time with her husband who is working overseas.

Jo joined us in 2018 as Operations Assistant and has worked for the charity in several posts, including Admin Manager, before becoming part-time Volunteer and Membership Manager, in which role she became the key person for looking after our volunteer sea staff. (The email address seastaffadmin@oytsouth.org is still in use and will be looked after by other members of the office team for the time being).

Jo has brought a fantastic blend of efficiency and creativity to the role over the years – do have a look at some of the short stories she contributed to illustrate our Sail To Wellbeing programme!

Jo has played a great part in the successes of the charity in the last six years, which of course included the very challenging period of the pandemic and all the joys and complications of returning to sailing after that. We’ll be sorry to lose her and we wish her all the best for the future.

If you would like to contribute to Jo’s leaving present, there’s a donation link here.

Back to index

* Volunteer sea staff bookings for 2025 – send in your bids  BY 1^st JANUARY! (Including people who earned new volunteer recommendations this year)
Please send in your bids for sailing next year!

This is NOT first-come, first-served and it will be something we work on over the winter. If you possibly can, get your bids to us by 1^st January – either dates when you would like to sail, or details of the maximum number of days you can offer and any dates you can’t manage.

The process is that we will do a rota for the paid staff and book relief skippers, and then go on to booking relief first mates. (First mates: we’ll email you separately to tell you where the gaps are once the paid staff rota is finalised – no need to send in bids till that’s sorted). After that we’ll look at a few other priorities (e.g. for training and assessment to senior levels) before allocating teams of people to fill the other roles on each voyage.

For those of you who haven’t been through the process before or can’t remember, here’s a quick run-down:

It really helps if you can look at the sailing programme when sending in your availability. There’s no point, for example, telling us you are available from 6^th to 13^th August – that’s half of one voyage and half of the next so there’s no complete voyage you can do!

Qualified sea staff (anyone who has previously sailed with us as a watchleader, bosun or engineer) and anyone who has already sailed as sea staff but is partway through training and assessment – 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 2025 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 already sailed as sea staff but you HAVE 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 (after which you can do other voyages next year). 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.

There is paperwork to be completed before you can sail (DBS, references etc) so if you want to sail as a volunteer in 2025, please make sure you are in touch with seastaffadmin@oytsouth.org about your paperwork. We won’t normally consider volunteer voyage bids from anyone who hasn’t started their paperwork or isn’t making good progress with getting it completed.

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 others who are new to their own role. 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.

Back to index

* Training weekend in February – details
OYT South’s 2024 shorebased training weekend will take place on Saturday 1st and Sunday 2nd February 2024, at a new location in Botley. We should be ready to start taking bookings next week.

Fairthorne Manor in Curdridge will allow us to offer courses, accommodation and meals all on one site. It is half a mile from Botley station – good transport links and plenty of free parking on site.

The planned timetable is as follows:

SATURDAY – YOUTHWORK DAY

0930 – Young Carers
This workshop aims to support youth workers and volunteers working with young carers and recently bereaved children. It is designed to enable a greater understanding of the experiences of young carers and bereaved children, and how this affects children’s development, ability to engage, and interactions. The workshop also aims to equip volunteers and youth workers with skills to use in emotionally complex situations and to understand the additional needs that young carers and bereaved children might have. [Please note that elements of this workshop may be emotionally triggering, as we will explore the physiological impacts of bereavement and caring responsibilities. There will also be discussion points, in which participation is optional but encouraged to facilitate a collective understanding].

This session will be run by Halima Mehmood who first sailed with us aged 13, in 2011, through Shooting Star CHASE Children’s Hospice siblings programme, and has stayed involved ever since – currently sailing as a volunteer third mate.

1130 – Break

1145 – Safeguarding update with Steve Lacey, OYT South’s Safeguarding Officer

1245 – Lunch

1345 – Jennie Hogan – back by popular demand! Jennie delivered sessions at our training weekends in 2016 and again 2019 on child development and how early experiences can shape teenage behaviour. Jennie is an expert in understanding young people’s behaviour, the underlying reasons behind challenging behaviour and what we can do to support young people on our voyages, all delivered in a very engaging and accessible session which has a lot to offer all our volunteers and staff – even if you have heard her before. (NB there will be a break for tea during this session).

1745 – OYT South CEO Mark Todd reviews 2024 and looks forward to the 2025 season.

1900 – Dinner

SUNDAY
On Sunday you have a choice of EITHER a full day RYA Radar course; OR a full day First Aid course; OR a half day on other topics (details below), with the option of a GMDSS assessment for your radio licence.

0800 – Breakfast

0900 – EITHER RYA Radar Course OR RYA First Aid Course

RYA Radar – Radar is a critical tool to help safely navigate a vessel and also do good collision avoidance. Effective radar use is a key skill for First Mates and Skippers but we are also keen for watchleaders to build their radar skills. This course might not be ideal for brand-new watchleaders and bosuns but it is recommended for experienced third mates and above, and for anyone aiming for an RYA Yachtmaster qualification as radar use will be part of your exam.

RYA One-day First Aid – This course covers first aid and resuscitation techniques for yachtsmen, including a knowledge of the treatment for hypothermia. Recommended for ALL sea staff, required for second mates and above, compulsory updates every three years – check when your certificate goes out of date. Please DON’T book or pay without checking there is space for you as there is a strict limit of 12 places per day. We can add a second course on Saturday if there is enough demand.

0930 (for those not doing Radar or First Aid) OYT South office team session including updates on end of voyage feedback, membership plans, sea staff clothing and other useful things you need to know!

1030 – Coffee break – chance to order clothing

1130 (for those not doing Radar or First Aid) – Games workshop
Why do we play games on board – aside from having fun? How can we use games to break down barriers, to liven people up or calm them down, to aid learning, to create bonds and build trust – and so much more? Would you like to feel more confident about being asked to organise a games session during a voyage – or do you love leading games and want to pick up some new ideas or share your best tips?

1300 – Lunch

1400 – Finish for those not on first aid / radar / GMDSS

1400 – RYA Marine Radio Short Range Certificate GMDSS assessment – This course consists of the RYA interactive online course which MUST be completed in advance of the training weekend (it takes around 6-10 hours) plus a short practical session and exam at the training weekend. This course covers use of marine radios including GMDSS, and routine, distress, urgency and safety procedures. You must be over the age of 16 to do the assessment. Recommended for third mates, required for second mates and above.

1700 – ENDS

*There is a possibility that the price for the radar course will decrease if we get enough participants, any savings will be passed on to you.

We can also arrange accommodation there on Friday night, with breakfast on Saturday morning, if that would make it easier for you to manage the 0930 start on Saturday – please ask when booking. But don’t try to book quite yet – we’re aiming to have a booking form on the website very soon!

Things you might want to know:

• You can bring your own drinks for the Saturday night meal. If you bring alcohol, you must drink responsibly.
• Overnight stays are in shared rooms of 2-4 people. Email office@oytsouth.org to let us know who you would like to share with if you have a preference.
• There will be a sheet on the bed, but you will need to bring your own pillow and sleeping bag or quilt.
• There is plenty of free parking on site.
• Nearest train station is Botley and is about 10 minutes’ walk away.
• Tea, coffee, squash and biscuits are included.
• Please ensure you let us know about any dietary requirements.

Back to index

Chris Ellis Award – win £££s of the price of your next voyage
Open for 2024 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 one of the charity’s founders. You can also see some previous winning entries.

Back to index

* Official Supporter of Pip Hare in the Vendée Globe race!
Regular readers will know that thanks to our mutual links with the Pointer Family Trust, OYT South has been chosen as an Official Supporter for Pip Hare in the Vendée Globe singlehanded race around the world.

Pip remains in the top half of the fleet (there’s a leaderboard and a tracker on the race website), but sailing solo round the world is an extraordinary challenge for skippers and boats, and one of the key factors is how someone responds when things go wrong. Pip’s had some problems and repairs to deal with in the last few days – demanding in any circumstances but exceptionally taxing when you’re on your own, exhausted and sailing at high speeds in big seas, slamming into the waves. Do have a look at this video and maybe next time your own life gives you a bit of a kicking, you can draw inspiration from Pip. Or this video from the day she discovered a crack in a bulkhead and the voicenote on this page from Wednesday 11^th December when she’d done the job. And there’s even more on her Facebook page.

We are very proud to be supporting Pip and we hope that when she sees our logo in her cabin, it will remind her of what an incredible inspiration she is to young people – keen sailors, those who might be encouraged to try sailing, and even those who may never sail but who need a chance to look up from problems which may feel overwhelming, and to realise that there is a way forward after all. Being a winner is not only about coming first: there is so much courage and character in coping with the hand that life deals you.

Back to index

2025 programme – bookings open for group and individual voyages
Our 2025 programme is open for bookings, with plenty more exciting opportunities for young people to join us next year.

A lot of OYT South’s voyages are taken by organised groups such as a school, charity or youth club, who book the whole boat; but we always designate a number of voyages in school holidays for individuals who want to join a mixed group and make new friends. We have provisionally identified the first few individual voyages for next year (we will add more later) including some more in the summer holidays 2025.

30 June – 6 July, Southampton to Le Havre, £735 per person, 6 nights, age 15-25,. Ends with time at a Tall Ships festival – an amazing experience with the fleet!

 6-12 July, Le Havre to Dunkirk, £735 per person, 6 nights, age 15-25 – this is a Tall Ships Race with a fantastic festival at either end – a truly exciting adventure and a chance to create memories for a lifetime!

30 July – 4 Aug, Brixham to Brixham, £630 per person, 5 nights – standard youth voyage for individual bookings.

 11-15 August, Brixham to Brixham, £525 per person, 4 nights, age 11-16. A lot of our individual voyages attract keen young sailors, over-18s, people doing the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, and people wanting to test themselves with a challenging adventure; and, weather permitting, longer passages such as Channel crossings. But this doesn’t suit everyone! So for next year, we have designated this one shorter coastal voyage as a gentler opportunity, ideal for the younger end of our age range (11-16-year-olds) and passports not required. If you know anyone who is unsure about coping with a more ambitious voyage and wants an easier introduction, this is the voyage for them!

See the 2025 programme or the availability list for other individual and group voyages (and contact us to be added to the mailing list as we designate additional dates for individual voyages).

Back to index

* Financial appeal
Huge thanks this week to the Patrick and Helena Frost Foundation for a very generous donation for refit. And extra special thanks to the Peter Dixon Trust for support they are offering as they spend out their funds over the next three years before winding up – more on this in due course!

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.

Back to index

Prolific earrings and necklaces inspired by a crew member – ideal for Christmas!
Exciting news – sales of the earrings based on a drawing by a young crew member have been strong enough that our friends at Vurchoo have been inspired to add necklaces to the range!

£68 in silver or £85 in gold – click the pictures to go to the website and see how to buy them:

You can read the full story here of how the design was based on an idea from a Prolific crew member, with part of the proceeds coming to us to support our charitable work! The original earrings are still available for £40 in either gold or silver – click the pictures to see how to buy them:

Back to index

Raise funds for OYT South if you’re shopping online – we’ve made over £2,400 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 £2,400 through Easyfundraising – huge thanks to everyone who has used it!

Back to index

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. We are also on TikTok. 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.

Back to index

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.

Back to index

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.

Back to index