Last week (4th June 2025) the GEA celebrated its 80th anniversary by holding a members dinner including entertainment and lots of networking!!.

All GEA members were invited to join staff and the Board of directors in a celebration of our great history. We also invited some old colleagues and members of the European Association (EGEA) to help celebrate this great milestone event.  

We had planned the event to coincide with the Automechanika UK show as we knew several members would be attending the show. 

The evening started off with a pre-dinner drinks reception, allowing people to catch up with old friends and network with other members. We even produced a special photo backdrop for photos to capture the moments. We now have lots of photos of the event to share with the members and hopefully those who took their own photos will also share them, if we have not already seen them on social media feeds.

Our GEA president did an address to the members and presented some awards for services to the GEA. Surprisingly Leon Andriessen (President of EGEA) presented us (GEA) with a commemorative plaque marking the 80th Anniversary and the work we do as part of the European association.

Following a delicious three course meal, and a few more drinks we were enthralled by our after dinner speaker Ben Collins (or previously known as The Stig from BBC’s Top Gear program). It was really interesting to learn about his career and what other work he has done, race driving (maybe an obvious one) but also stunt driving on many top rated films and much more. 

We held a charity collection during the evening with all proceeds going to the Presidents’ nominated charity, which is the Royal British Legion. I am really pleased to advise we had over £3500 pounds worth of donations in both money and prizes. Thank you all so much for your generosity I know it will be well accepted by the Royal British legion.

The evening was concluded by music act Ad Astra, a four piece electronic quartet.

Thank you to all our members and hope to see you all and those who were unable to attend on this occasion, at the next GEA event.