In this Bulletin
Sections which have changed since last time marked *
- * AGM and curry night THIS SATURDAY
- Winter refit – help needed to clear the boat THIS WEEKEND 8th & 9th November
- * Goodwood House event
- * Josh’s 10-year anniversary
- * Voyage news
- * Refit news
- * 2025 vessel track
- Shorebased training weekend February 2026 – bookings open
- 2026 voyages – bookings for groups and individuals
- 2026 adult voyages
- Chris Ellis Award – win £££s of the price of your next voyage
- * Financial appeal
- Michael Campbell – thanksgiving service details 17th November
- Raise funds for OYT South if you’re shopping online – we’ve made over £2,700 through Easyfundraising! Are you aware of the size of donations available?
- OYT South social media – please share as well as liking! NB we are now on Bluesky instead of Twitter/X
- New readers’ welcome and introduction
- Receiving this newsletter by email
AGM and curry night THIS SATURDAY
We are looking forward to seeing people at our AGM this weekend. The AGM is open to anyone (though only members can vote) – all welcome. It’s in Southampton this Saturday 8th November – you can see the details here including location and timings; but the deadline for booking to join us for curry has passed!
The mailing with the formal notice of the AGM, with the agenda, candidates for election and so on, has gone out. If you are eligible to vote at the AGM then you should have received it – contact the office if you haven’t got it but think you should have been on the list.
It’s not too late to join and become a voting member if you are not already. You can pay your membership fee here – either as a non-sailing membership, or as part of your annual mates’ fee for sailing volunteers. There are reduced rates for under-25s, and sailing volunteers of any age who can’t afford to pay their annual fee can talk to us about bursary support – no-one should be deterred from sailing as a watchleader or bosun by the cost. But anyone who is regularly involved with the charity ought to be a member, able to have a say at the AGM, elect the Trustees and influence the future direction of the charity.
Winter refit – help needed to clear the boat THIS WEEKEND 8th & 9th November
Dates for your diary! We’ll be looking for help on refit weekdays but for those of you who can only come at weekends, these are the dates when we’re currently planning for the team to be working and needing loads of support:
8th and 9th November (AGM weekend) – lots of volunteers needed to clear the boat for refit, get sails off and so on. Call the boat on 07990 518915 if you can help.
29th and 30th November – aiming for this to be topside painting and capping rail repairs
17th and 18th January – no specific jobs list yet… watch this space!
7th and 8th March – post-refit clean, and sails and kit back on board
There won’t be a refit weekend in February because we have the training weekend.
Email refit@oytsouth.org if you can help. Refit volunteers should generally be aged 18+ but if you are 16 or 17 and have already received a recommendation to come back and train as a volunteer, it’s always worth asking as we may be able to include you.
No experience needed – plenty of unskilled jobs and plenty of skilled jobs which we can teach you!
* Goodwood House event
We had a truly amazing night at Goodwood House yesterday, thanks to Ned’s Fund and to our guest speaker Libby Purves!
We had been told to expect an impressive art collection but it really was incredible, as well as the friendliest staff imaginable who really wanted to tell us all about it. Successive Dukes of Richmond have created a collection which is really personal to the family. For example, an eighteenth-century Duke didn’t just buy a couple of Canaletto paintings: he invited Canaletto to his London house to paint the view from the living room window:
There is also some great maritime art, and some remarkable tapestries:
Guests at the event had plenty of time to look through the rooms as well as chat to each other. The boat team were there looking amazing:
Then we moved on to the main event of the night. Our CEO Mark Todd introduced Libby Purves and explained the connection between Ocean Youth Trust South and Ned’s Fund, which over the last six years has funded 52 places on our voyages for young people who could not otherwise have been able to sail – and thanks to this event, will fund many more – in memory of Ned; while Ned’s mum, Jo Marsden, has become not just a donor but also a real friend.
Then Libby Purves gave a barnstorming speech about the value of sailing for young people and the importance of the sea to all of us and our collective national life, interspersed with humorous anecdotes from her own sailing. We also learned that in the 1840s, the Royal Yacht Squadron found the existing code book for signal flags inadequate to their needs. Yes, there were the single flag signals for things like “I require a pilot”; and the Navy had signals for things like “Engage the enemy more closely”. But the Royal Yacht Squadron had other concerns, and came up with a list of numeric hoists, with 6491 meaning “I can strongly recommend my washerwoman” and 9719 “Can you spare a soup tureen?”
Huge thanks to all involved in making last night such a great success, including Goodwood House and the Duke of Richmond for the venue; Libby Purves; all the guests who bought tickets on the night with the proceeds going to our bursaries fund; our Business Manager Lynne Robbins and our three volunteers on the night, Sue Nottingham who organises voyages for Testbourne School and two teenage crew members, Lucy and Oliver Heaton; and above all, Jo Marsden and everyone from Ned’s Fund.
* Josh’s 10-year anniversary
Our Staff Engineer Josh Caudery has been with us for ten years! He joined the staff team at the start of refit 2015-16. However, he had sailed with us several times before taking on the full-time role and we have found in the archives some photos from as far back as 2012:
And here’s Josh in 2015 on his first refit as Staff Engineer, demonstrating in so many ways why he was always the perfect fit for the job:
Josh, you are a very much loved member of the OYT South family; you have kept both John Laing and Prolific in great working order, knowing that a safe and sound boat is the foundation of everything we do; and you bring fun and joy to our voyages to the benefit of staff, volunteers and young people. Many congratulations on your 10th anniversary with the charity, and here’s to many more!
* Voyage news
The last newsletter came out partway through our half-term individuals’ voyage – the final youth voyage of 2025!
On Friday they stayed in Cowes due to high winds, and delivered some theory sessions on weather, safety equipment, points of sail and parts of the boat.
After lunch and time ashore, they also took part in an abandon ship drill and had a chance to look at all of our safety equipment and learn how to launch life rafts.
They then had a Hallowe’en party with face paints, decorations, apple bobbing, doughnuts on strings, pumpkin carving, make-up and homemade costumes.
Next morning they departed to go sailing in the eastern Solent, getting as far as Bembridge before the sea state became lumpy so they tacked back. There was a lot of traffic in the Solent and they avoided some big ships and carried on sailing. They enjoyed bright sunshine in the morning:
It was so sunny that even in November we were glad of the sponsorship we receive from Saltee sunscreen!
However, the afternoon brought some gigantic clouds – after dropping sails and motoring towards Portsmouth they had a heavy downpour which restricted visibility to a few hundred metres.
It cleared very quickly and left Prolific with a beautiful sky and sunset as they docked in Haslar marina.
On Sunday they had an early start and breakfast underway as they sailed back to Ocean Village, where they had a big lunch and an even bigger clean up, before debriefs and the end of the voyage.
They had sailed 80 miles and you can see their voyage track here.
Feedback included:
“I am so glad to have found my place on board Prolific and I look forward to stowing away on board! Best bit: waking up to a very beautiful sunrise in Lymington, and sailing into Portsmouth when we had a beautiful sunset following torrential rain.”
“I really enjoyed it and they were so understanding and supportive and making suitable adjustments for my ADHD.”
“Had an amazing time on Prolific, first time on a bigger boat and super happy to be recommended as sea staff. Thank you. Best bit: getting to lead the dropping of the sail.”
“Extremely fun! Learnt a lot of new skills on top of the stuff I already knew.”
“First time on a boat! It was so much fun.”
“I really enjoyed it and learnt so much! Excited to come on board again. Best bit: learning lots of new stuff and really enjoying working with other people.”
“This was a great trip and really fun, although I wish we did more sailing [bad weather kept them in harbour for a day]. I will definitely go on another trip.”
“Very much enjoyed the sailing, shame we didn’t see any dolphins but it was overall very fun and looking forward to going on board again. Best bit: getting to know lots of new people, I very much enjoyed that, and leading the hoisting of the sail.”
“Best trip ever had for my second time on Prolific. I enjoyed it very well, had a lot of fun and a bit of a laugh, learned lots. Thank you Prolific.”
“Enjoyed learning about bosun duties.”
“I had so much fun!!! The murder game was amazing and I loved the peg game! Going ashore with my friends was awesome. I was a bit sad we didn’t do much overnight sailing though.”
Big thanks to sea staff Constantinos, Sara, Tom Knight, Glyn Collins, Orla Cronin, Roisin Smith and Erin Misselbrook.
And that was the end of the 2025 sailing season! Huge thanks to everyone involved in making it such a great season … Let’s do it all again next year! (But first, we need lots of help with the winter vessel refit).
* Refit news
The 2025-6 winter vessel refit has begun!
We have some new core team volunteers joining but we will introduce them properly in the next issue. This week was mainly about the staff team of Gotch, Josh and Sara preparing for the vessel survey, though we also had visits from Lauren Mackenzie, Jack Thompson and Will Durham, joining Josh’s 10th anniversary celebration.
We had hoped to do a day sail for MDL staff members on Monday but the weather was appalling so instead we just invited them on board for coffee and cake.
On Tuesday we had a rig report done and then it was all about getting set up for the survey:
The coding survey itself was on Thursday with Guido De Mola from Mecal, which all went very well – he told the team that it is easy when he steps on board a boat and finds everything in good order and can see that people have taken time and trouble to get things up to date and the whole set-up looks professional – so that is a real tribute to Gotch, Josh and Sara!
They have worked so hard all year and delivered a great season but they can’t just relax now as there’s a lot to do this winter. PLEASE help them if you possibly can – even if you just turn up for a day or so here and there to help with some cleaning or fetching and carrying; or perhaps by buying some of the small refit items and materials we need; or dropping off some morale-boosting goodies to the workers. Just email refit@oytsouth.org to see how you can help. If you can offer more time or genuine expertise, that’s fantastic; but don’t ever think you won’t be valued and appreciated for a smaller offering – even a gesture or a supportive message can be just what the team needs if it’s cold and wet and the job they are tackling is proving difficult!
* 2025 vessel track
The complete vessel track for the year – 5,522 nautical miles in 78 seconds!
Shorebased training weekend February 2026 – bookings open
Next year’s OYT South training weekend for staff and volunteers will run from 7pm on Friday 6th February to 4.30pm on Sunday 8th February at a new venue, Foxlease Park, Clay Hill, Lyndhurst, Hampshire, SO43 7DE. As last year, all accommodation and meals will be available on site. Accommodation will be in bunk rooms.
This weekend is open to current staff and volunteers as well as new volunteers who have started the process of getting involved with us and are hoping to sail on our voyages next year.
See here for details and booking form.
Saturday 7th February
0900 – Welcome / housekeeping
0930 – Youth Mental Health First Aid Awareness
1230 – Lunch
1330 – Behaviour Buddy – strategies for managing behaviour
1430 – Office update (Booking system/ membership consultation)
1530 – Tea/coffee Break
1600 – Safeguarding
1700 – Free time
Sunday 8th February
0900 – First Aid OR Sail Repair (these are both full-day courses)
1230 – Lunch
1330 – First Aid OR Sail Repair continued
1630 – Finish
Time TBC – GMDSS
GMDSS involves an online course which MUST be completed in advance, followed by a short practical session and exam on the day, to get your radio licence.
Price list
This year we have simplified things – instead of a separate price for every course, meal and overnight stay, we can offer all-inclusive prices as well as some separate options. The booking form is available here, but prices are shown below for information.
Whole weekend including sail repairs – £120
Whole weekend including first aid – £150
Day rate (including lunch) – £50
Day rate plus dinner and evening – £65
Just First Aid (including lunch) – £80
GMDSS – £40 course fee plus separate exam fee (cost tbc – currently £76 but it may increase in January) payable to the RYA
Optional add-ons
Bedding and towels – £7
Friday evening meal – £5
2026 voyages – bookings for groups and individuals
Do you know a school or youth club or another organisation which might like an exclusive booking for 12-15 people? Are you looking for an individuals’ voyage in the summer holidays?
The 2026 programme is now available on the website and there is an availability list here. If you are interested in a 2026 booking, please ask.
2026 adult voyages
2026 adult weekends are open for bookings:
24-26 April 2026, Southampton, 2 nights, age range 18+, £270 per person, adult weekend voyage (Friday evening to Sunday evening)
9-11 Oct 2026, Southampton, 2 nights, age range 18+, £270 per person, adult weekend voyage (Friday evening to Sunday evening)
These weekends are ideal for people who want to find out more about the possibility of volunteering with us – but you are also welcome if you simply want to come along and enjoy a sail on board Prolific!
Chris Ellis Award – win £££s of the price of your next voyage
Open for 2025 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.
* Financial appeal
Big thanks this week to the Nancy Bateman Trust for a fantastic contribution to the Kit Power bursaries fund; to the Pointer Family Trust for a superb refit donation; and to other donors who choose to remain anonymous. Many thanks also to Noel Wright and Andrew Hughes for kind donations, and to Peter Binning for bringing friends to our Goodwood event and encouraging donations from them!
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, bank transfer 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.
Michael Campbell – thanksgiving service 17th November
We recently reported the death of our lovely vice patron Michael Campbell. There will be a Thanksgiving Service for Michael’s life in Winchester Cathedral at 11am on Monday 17th November. All OYT / OYC people very welcome but his office is trying to keep a track of numbers so if you wish to attend, please confirm to office@elliscampbell.co.uk.
Raise funds for OYT South if you’re shopping online – we’ve made over £2,700 through Easyfundraising! Are you aware of the size of donations available?
We mention Easyfundraising in the newsletter each week and we’re really grateful to those people who are using it regularly, but there must be people who haven’t looked at it, or often don’t remember to do it.
Here’s what it DOESN’T do:
- Require you to buy from sources you wouldn’t normally use
- Take lots of time
- Ask you to do anything complicated at all!
- Produce donations so small you would barely notice
- Cost you a penny!
You simply have to buy whatever you already planned to buy online, from whoever you choose to shop with – but having signed up with Easyfundraising, just click to accept a donation if it’s offered when you shop. It’s often a percentage, which means the donations can be really significant for bigger items – a holiday, a flight, an expensive train ticket etc. For example, one volunteer got a £17 donation when renewing their home insurance. Someone else earned nearly £10 from a VistaPrint order. A few donations like that from a hundred supporters and it starts looking like a really significant total each year.
Do tell us if you’ve got a really good donation from something you bought – these stories help to inspire others. Maybe you even order things online for business purposes and your employer would agree to donate to us like this – at no cost to them but a way to feel good every time they need new boxes of business cards or train tickets to get staff to a conference!
It takes a minute or two to sign up to Easyfundraising: 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, often including the site you would normally choose to use for all your rainbow unicorn requirements – and it doesn’t cost you anything, you pay the same price you would pay anyway.
PLEASE click the link now and sign up!
We have already raised over £2,700 through Easyfundraising – huge thanks to everyone who has used it!
OYT South social media – please share as well as liking! NB we are now on Bluesky instead of Twitter/X
If you look at the top left of any page on our website, you can click on icons for Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn. We are also on TikTok.
We have now updated the social media links on our website, replacing Twitter/X with Bluesky – please come and join us there!
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.