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September 2026 Club Newsletter
Hello,
Last month’s newsletter arrived just a few days before what was probably the most important Club event of our year — our 10th Anniversary gathering at the Northern Jaguar Show at the Avro Heritage Museum.
I’m delighted to say that nine members and their partners joined us with their XJ-SC Cabriolets and XJS Convertibles, including members who had travelled considerable distances to be there.
Seeing those cars lined up underneath our new Club banners made me think rather more about what the last ten years have actually created — and, perhaps more importantly, what will keep the Club interesting and useful for the next ten.
The answer, of course, is all of us.
So this month’s newsletter is less about new things I’ve added to the website and rather more about the Club itself, the people and cars within it, and the many different ways we can all contribute to keeping it alive.
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Ten Years of the XJS Soft Tops Club
On Sunday 23rd August, nine Club members brought their cars together at Woodford, Cheshire, for our 10th Anniversary gathering as part of the Northern Jaguar Show.
The Greater Manchester Region of the Jaguar Enthusiasts’ Club had kindly reserved an area for up to 20 of our cars. We didn’t manage to fill all twenty places, but once our nine XJ-SCs and Convertibles were parked together, with our new Club banners in place, we nevertheless made a display of which I think we could be very proud.
We were positioned between the Greater Manchester and Cheshire JEC Regions and, with glorious weather, Jaguars everywhere and the magnificent Avro Vulcan towering over the show, it was quite a setting in which to mark our first decade.
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One of the nicest parts of the day for me was simply putting faces to names. An international online Club inevitably means that I can exchange emails or forum messages with somebody for years without ever actually meeting them.
Avro gave us the opportunity to do exactly that — to talk about our cars, compare experiences and enjoy being amongst other people who understand both the pleasures and occasional frustrations of XJS ownership!
I’ve now created an Activity Report recording our day at Avro, together with photographs of the cars and our Club display.
My thanks again to everyone who came along, and to Pete Smith and the Greater Manchester JEC team for inviting us to become part of their show.
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Now, Where Has Your XJS Taken You?
Last month I introduced our new Activity Reports, and our Avro report is a good example of exactly why I created them.
But you certainly don’t need nine cars, a major Jaguar show or a Vulcan bomber in the background before you have something worth sharing!
Perhaps you’ve been to a local show, taken the XJS away for a weekend, completed a troublesome repair, met another owner, or simply enjoyed an afternoon drive with the roof down.
A few photographs and a few words are enough.
Individually these are simply enjoyable little stories. Collectively, they begin to create something much more valuable — a permanent record of our cars, their owners, where they have been and how they are being enjoyed and maintained.
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What Will the Next Ten Years Look Like?
Reaching ten years inevitably makes you look backwards for a moment, but I’m rather more interested in what happens next.
We now have members around the world and a website capable of preserving an enormous amount of information about the XJ-SC Cabriolet and XJS Convertible. The framework is there — but a Club isn’t really its website, its logo, its banners or even the person sitting behind the scenes administering it.
The Club is its members.
And contributing doesn’t have to mean doing anything enormous. It might simply be:
- answering another member’s question in the Forum;
- adding your XJS to our Car Albums;
- uploading an interesting photograph;
- sharing an Activity Report or a longer story;
- telling us about an event;
- welcoming or helping another member;
- sending me some feedback or a suggestion;
- or helping financially towards the costs of keeping the Club running.
None of us needs to do all of those things. But if each of us occasionally does one of them, the Club continues to grow and becomes more useful to everybody.
Have an idea, suggestion or some feedback? That’s a contribution too — please get in touch.
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A Little Something for the Car…
After ten years, I thought it was also about time we had a fresh supply of XJS Soft Tops Club window stickers.
The new stickers are a slightly neater size than our original ones and are a simple way of showing that your Cabriolet or Convertible belongs to our Club when you’re out and about.
They’re now available through our new Support the Club page, where I’ve brought together the various ways members can help with the modest costs involved in keeping everything running.
Membership remains free, as it always has been, but for anyone who would like a Club sticker for their car, or who simply wants to put a few pounds or dollars towards the website, newsletters, events and other running costs, the option is now there.
Window stickers and voluntary contributions are both available from the page.
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Keep Talking…
I’m pleased to see more conversations taking place in the Discussion Forum recently, particularly members asking questions and other owners sharing their experience in reply.
If you haven’t looked recently, please drop in occasionally. Someone may have asked the very question you can answer — and sometimes a small piece of information remembered from a repair several years ago can save another owner hours of head-scratching.
And please don’t forget that you can talk to me too – reply to this email, or use the Feedback option below every Article, Activity, Car Album and Photo Gallery entry on our website.
One of the nicest things about last month’s newsletter was the number of members who simply replied to it. Some corrected their details, some mentioned their cars, some offered photographs and stories, and others simply said hello.
All of that is welcome. Feedback — good or bad — helps me understand what members actually want from the Club rather than me having to guess!
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Here’s to the Next Ten Years
I suppose the danger of celebrating a tenth anniversary is that it can sound rather like we’ve reached the end of something.
I don’t see it that way at all.
Our cars are getting older and, inevitably, rarer. That makes the knowledge, photographs, histories and experiences we collect together increasingly valuable.
The website gives us somewhere to preserve all of that, but it’s the contributions of members which turn a website into a Club.
So whether you attended Avro, answered a Forum question, uploaded a photograph, created an Album, bought a window sticker, made a contribution, sent me some feedback, shared a story — or you’re simply one of the many people around the world who enjoys owning one of these rather special Jaguars — thank you for being part of our first ten years.
Now let’s see what we can make of the next ten.
Cheers,
Laurence
To get in touch, share a story, send some photographs or simply tell me what you think, just reply to this Newsletter.
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XJS Soft Tops Club —
www.xjs-soft-tops.com
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