The Sea-Change Sailing Trust's Executive Officer and Bargemaster Richard Titchener has been awarded the MBE in the King's Birthday Honours List.
The citation reads:
Richard Donald Titchener. Chief Executive Officer, Sea-Change Sailing Trust and Captain, Blue Mermaid. For services to Disadvantaged Young People and to the community in Essex. (Maldon, Essex)
Since 2007 Richard has helped run the Trust using several different vessels before commissioning Blue Mermaid, the first modern sailing barge built for trade. Blue Mermaid was built to carry cargo under sail just like the hundreds of Thames sailing barges that used to deliver goods around the British Isles in the past. She can carry 110 tons of palleted goods in her watertight hold, giving small groups of trainees some valuable work-related skills on their voyage and helping to widen thinking around sustainable local transport networks.
Based in Maldon, the Trust's primary work is with groups of young people who live aboard the 2015-built replica Spritsail barge for up to a week, together with their group leaders, but they also sail with groups of adults with learning disabilities, physical disabilities, and those with dementia and their supporters.
The Trust work with groups of people from the age of ten years upwards. They are able to work with those who are experiencing disruption and disadvantage in their lives and seek to offer voyages to those who are not in employment, education or training; young offenders or those in danger of offending; experiencing social exclusion; with special needs or challenged by traditional educational settings.
The Trust's aim is not to teach people to sail, but through living together onboard Blue Mermaid and fully participating in all activities onboard, from handling sails, climbing the rigging, and steering, to helping to prepare a meal for all the crew, that people develop transferrable skills like communication, resilience, team working and personal confidence, which help them in their lives ashore.
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