This is the latest edition of our “What we learned this Month…..” newsletter in which we intend to open the doors of Oxford Head Injury Services so you can take a look inside and see what we have been up to, we hope you enjoy them and look forward to hearing about what you think about Oxford Head Injury Services
This month is a MG Live Special edition as this year we teamed up with the MG Car Club to be the official charity at MG Live 2016 which is the biggest MG Car event in the world and takes place at the home of British motor sport Silverstone
This year it took place on the weekend of June 4th and 5th.
The MG Car Club is located in Abingdon which is just a few short miles from Oxford Head Injury Services’s home in Kennington, and is right next to the old MG’s works buildings where for over 50 years MG’s rolled out of the production line.
MG Live is the place to be for all lovers of the iconic British motor car, with two days of thrilling track action roaring around the famous Silverstone track, hundreds of proud owners showing off their mint condition MG’s and swapping stories as well as a packed schedule of petrol head fun in the main arena.
Over it’s 90 year history MG has been committed to innovation in road safety, this is illustrated by it’s famous catchphrase “Safety Fast”, at it’s peak in the 1930’s over 30 people a day where killed on our roads, but over the years new inventions and legislation have driven that figure steadily down until in 2013 that figure was down to less than 5 people every day.
There is still much work to be done to drive these figures down still further, and off course as more people avoid fatal injuries we have seen an increase in those surviving with serious injuries including as you can imagine brain injuries.
Another value we share with MG is a desire to live life to it’s fullest, so MG Live is a perfect event for us to get involved with, and we chose “safety Fast” as the theme of our marquee at the event.
The Oxford Head Injury Services team arrived on Friday to set up our Marquee and await the arrival of what would turn out to be one of the star attractions of the show. The British Motor museum at nearby Gaydon had very kindly agreed to loan us for the weekend the unique 1972 MGB SSV1 from it’s collection of historic cars.
This safety car prototype had built in what where then a number of groundbreaking safety features that would go to become standard including ABS brakes, airbags and crumple zones in the bodywork, and a few that wouldn’t become standard such as the rooftop periscope!.
We brought our illustration of safety features up to date with a pair of modern high performance motorcycle leathers and a state of the art motorcycle helmet kindly loaned to us by the industry leading manufacturer Oxford Products based in Witney. Both the helmet and leathers has sustained damage in a 80 mile an hour crash during a motor sport event, yet the rider walked away uninjured. In the spirit of “Safety Fast” we also had display of the covers of the official MG magazine also called “Safety Fast” from the 1950’s and 60’s.
On both days of the event we kept busy selling programs (a percentage of whose sales will be donated to Oxford Head Injury Services) and greeting and taking donations from the many people who visited our marquee, as well as keeping kids of all ages amused with our remote control Mini challenge where people where tasked with driving a slalom course while wearing glasses that mimic the visual and balance effects of a brain injury.
On Saturday Jamie Miller Oxford Head Injury Services CEO attended and spoke at the annual MG Car Club’s President’s International Dinner where over £1100 was raised at an auction for Oxford Head Injury Services, Jamie was also kept busy as head judge for the best MG car club display competition, here is is presenting the Gold prize to the winners.
On Sunday we all found ourselves at the main arena at MG Live where the amazing stunt car driver Russ Swift a much loved regular at MG live performed his incredible show, spectators where given the chance to bid to take a seat in Russ Car while he performed, and over £600 was raised in just a few short minutes. Huge thanks are owed to both Russ Swift and the brilliant Ant Anstead from Channel 4’s “For the Love of Cars” who was the host and announcer at the arena.
All in all it was a fantastic weekend, huge thanks to the MG Car Club for inviting us and it has given us plenty of ideas for next year when we return again to MG Live
And Finally:
The Sun has set on MG Live 2016, but we will be returning to Silverstone in 2017!
