In this Bulletin
Sections which have changed since last time marked *
- * Happy New Year
- * Refit news and help needed – especially NEXT WEEK AND WEEKEND 13-19th January
- * OYT South office staffing
- * Training weekend 1st-2nd February – courses and meals still available
- * Pip Hare’s Vendée Globe race
- Chris Ellis Award – win £££s of the price of your next voyage
- 2025 voyages available – – individual and group voyages for young people, and adult voyages
- * Funding help if you want to take part in a voyage
- * Financial appeal
- Please contribute to Jo Clark’s leaving present
- 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
* Happy New Year
We want to send our very best wishes to all our friends and supporters, staff, volunteers, clients, sponsors and donors – we hope you are all safe and well and we look forward to having you involved with the charity in 2025. We hugely appreciate all that you do for us, and we hope you are very proud of the impact that your support has on the young people who sail with us.
* Refit news and help needed – especially NEXT WEEK AND WEEKEND 13-19th January
We’re just gearing up for a massively labour-intensive bit of refit and we really need your help!
The entire hull below the waterline is being sanded next week 13-17 January, and then we need to do the antifouling next weekend 18-19 January. These are both jobs which can use lots and lots of people! There is hot chocolate, cake and good company on offer, and there may be some space to sleep in the refit house if you can stay for more than a day. Please email refit@oytsouth.org if you can spare any time at all in this period, or text Gotch or Sara or you have their numbers, or contact them via the sea staff WhatsApp groups. Age 18+ only, please.
If you can’t help in this period, there’s plenty to do in the rest of refit until March, so please do get in touch about when you might be able to come. We’re just in the process of working through sea staff bids for voyage berths this season, and helping at refit (as well as raising money or introducing us to new clients) is a great way of making sure you are in our thoughts if you have applied for some of the really popular voyages where there is a lot of competition for places.
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! And 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.
Big thanks this week to the staff team of Sara, Gotch and Josh; the regulars Sasha, Seb, Chris and Anita; and to Emily Sharpus-Jones for coming along to help.
There has been lots of sanding and prep for varnishing:
The team has also been cleaning the outsides of the tanks while we’ve got easy access to them. BD Marine has been testing the fresh water and grey water tanks so we can avoid having any leaks! There’s also been a lot of work towards replacing the oven – which means cutting a hatch so we can remove the old one and get a new one in! We’re also grateful to Ocean Safety who have been servicing lifejackets and EPIRBs, and to Pressing Needs who have cleaned all our bunk cushion covers. Otherwise it’s been all about cleaning the hull and starting the sanding; and Seb and Chris have been servicing seacocks.
But now: the antifouling! There’s a big area to cover but not so bad if lots of people come and do a section each. Think how proud you will be when we’re sailing – hopefully going fast in the Tall Ships Race – if you know that part of that is down to your work!
* OYT South office staffing
Unfortunately we’re short-staffed just for the moment and there’s a lot to do just now, including things which can’t be put off, like all the organisation for the training weekend. Please bear with us if you need to contact us as it may take longer than usual to deal with emails etc. If you really need an answer to something, you can always put “URGENT” in the subject line, but otherwise we’ll just get to it as soon as we can!
* Training weekend 1st-2nd February – courses and meals still available
OYT South’s 2025 shorebased training weekend will take place on Saturday 1st and Sunday 2nd February 2025, at a new location in Botley. Full details, timing, prices and a booking form for courses and meals now available here.
The deadline for booking accommodation in the venue has now passed; but if you are absolutely desperate, do let us know and we’ll see if there is anything we can do – no promises!
We’ve also had to give initial numbers for meals to the venue but it’s still possible to add a reasonable number extra names if anyone wants to join us. We’ve had a good lot of bookings already so it should be a fun and lively weekend.
The First Aid and Radar courses are close to full but we can still squeeze you in if you get in touch soon. Unfortunately there wasn’t sufficient demand to add a second first aid course on the Saturday. There’s plenty of space left on other courses and there are some really interesting sessions – do have a look at the webpage and use the booking form there to tell us what you would like to do.
If you haven’t yet started volunteering with us but are hoping to do so, please do come along to the weekend – it’s a lot of fun and a great way of meeting other volunteers and OYT South staff. You will be made very welcome and we hope you will find the training interesting and useful. If you need advice on which courses are most appropriate for you, please ask.
Once you have submitted the booking form, we will get back to you to confirm there is space for you on your chosen course(s) and we will invoice you for the correct amount.
* Pip Hare’s Vendée Globe race
OYT South has been a very proud Official Supporter for Pip Hare in the Vendée Globe singlehanded race around the world, and in the last newsletter we reported the heartbreaking news that Pip’s race had been ended by a dismasting in the Southern Ocean and gave links to a couple of videos of Pip creating a jury rig and heading for Melbourne. We’re delighted to report that she arrived there safely but if you weren’t already following her progress, do have a look on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@PipHareOceanRacing, starting with the one called Vendee Globe 2024: Update from onboard Medallia (just after the dismasting) followed by 11 short episodes of “Slow Boat to Melbourne”. It’s an extraordinary record of someone who has just seen years of work, planning, hopes and dreams come to a shocking and abrupt end, all alone and hundreds of miles from land – and then picking herself up, making a jury rig, modifying her sails with remarkable ingenuity, trying to achieve something every day to make her situation better, and still managing to find joy in the experience. It’s one of the most inspiring things you could watch!
We send all best wishes to Pip and everyone on her team who worked so hard for this race.
Chris Ellis Award – win £££s of the price of your next voyage
Anyone else want to submit an entry? We could still allow a few last-minute entries and it might be just what you need to get some funding toward one of the more expensive voyages this summer – maybe even the Tall Ships Race!
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.
2025 voyages available – individual and group voyages for young people, and adult voyages
Our 2025 programme has plenty of exciting opportunities to join us this 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 batch of individual voyages for this season (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).
* Funding help if you want to take part in a voyage
Are you aged 15-25 and wanting to take part in the Le Havre to Dunkirk Tall Ships Race (see here) but needing help to afford it? Have a look at the Oman Bursaries scheme and see if you might be eligible to apply.
If you have sailed with us in the past and earned a recommendation to join our volunteer training programme, you can ask us about funding towards a crew berth on the race or another of the more ambitious voyages which isn’t suitable for a brand-new inexperienced volunteer in a staff berth. The Gipsy Moth Fund is only open to people aged 16-25 who have had a volunteer recommendation from one of our skippers. You just need to tell us which voyage you want to do and how much you can afford to contribute, and we’ll see if we can fund the shortfall.
If you sailed with us last year but aren’t involved as a trainee volunteer (including under-16s) consider the Chris Ellis Award.
We also have a standard bursaries programme open to anyone aged 25 or under who wants to sail with us but can’t afford the full cost, whether or not you have sailed with us before, with grants available from a range of different donors. To apply, you need to email us with details of any personal circumstances relevant to why you can’t afford to sail without help; what you want to achieve and why you want to take part; which voyage you want to do (or some options for different possible voyages); and how much you can afford to contribute. You need to think hard about what, if anything, you can raise – bursary applications won’t be considered if they simply ask how much you can have, or request “as much as possible”: your application has to come after serious thought about anything else you can put in. This doesn’t mean we can’t grant 100% bursaries in exceptional circumstances, but we would need to understand why. Our funds are limited and if one person gets a very large grant, someone else may get nothing at all, so it’s important only to ask for as much as you genuinely need.
* Financial appeal
Huge thanks this week to the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Community Foundation, the Charles Burnett Memorial Fund, Gordon Pennie, Jonathan Pinnock, Peter Tracey, Mark Ryten, Stuart Harrison, Isaac Jones, Catharine Sillett, Penny Sykes, Hilary Croft, Gilian Ellis, Charles Peplow, Sylvia Mence, S Peskett and others who prefer to remain anonymous, for very generous 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 we can claim back tax on your donation.
Please contribute to Jo Clark’s leaving present!
Very sadly we had to say goodbye to Jo who left us before Christmas. She had been working for the charity since 2018 but 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 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 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.
We’ll keep Jo’s leaving present fund open for a little while longer – if you would like to contribute, there’s a donation link here.
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!
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.
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.