At the Region’s AGM, the Members unanimously agreed to select Mission Motorsport and StarterMotor as its 2026 Region Charities and to renew its adoption of 5 Cars from the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust’s collection. A number of Region events in 2026 will raise further funds for these charities.
Steve Daniels, Region Chairman, said, “Our Region believes in playing its part in supporting charities where we have an existing relationship, or they are doing sterling work in areas in which we have a common interest. We are fortunate to have received a significant donation from a Region Member who has a military heritage and an interest in the development of young people.”
Back-to-Back presentations to Mission Motorsport and StarterMotor took place at Bicester Motion on Thursday, 2nd April. Previously, a number of Region Members had visited the JDHT at Gaydon to receive adoption certificates for the 5 vehicles.
Mission Motorsport is the Armed Forces’ Motorsport Charity, whose motto is ‘Race Retrain Recover’. They have, so far, placed more than 2,000 Wounded, Injured and Sick service leavers into employment and provided support and advice to thousands more. Alex Atherton, the Charity’s Managing Director, said, “We have very much enjoyed a long-term relationship with the JEC’s Oxfordshire Region, with their Members & their cars supporting our Veterans’ events. We sincerely appreciate them also kindly adopting us as one of their 2026 charities”.
StarterMotor, a relatively young charity with inevitably limited resources, has already built a proven track record of inspiring younger generations to appreciate and learn about historic vehicles and helping them to turn their passion into careers across the automotive sector. Steve Cootes, StarterMotor’s General Manager, said, “Having established a close collaboration with JLR Classic, our connection with the JEC has been a natural and very welcome development. We are truly grateful for the generous support provided by the JEC Oxfordshire Region this year, which has made a meaningful difference to our work. We look forward to building on this relationship and working together on further initiatives in the years ahead.”.
The Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust is naturally well known to JEC Members, but it is easy to forget that they are a charity whose activities are inevitably constrained by the funds available to it. Nonetheless, the Trust has actively supported Region events, including their presence at Mission Motorsport events with collection cars.
Matthew Davis, the JDHT’s Managing Director, commented, “Adopting a collection car for 12 months is a wonderful way to support our work and enables us to do more. We enjoy supporting JEC and Oxfordshire Region events and these funds materially help us to do that. We are very grateful to the Region for again adopting 5 cars.”
All three organisations will be exhibiting at the JEC South Midlands Day, 21st June, with part of the attendees’ fees going to the JDHT from the Chiltern Open Air Museum.
