Advantages of Age Awards 2025 – why are we doing it?

Written by Rose Rouse and Suzanne Noble, the co-founders

Suzanne and Rose at the AofA Awards 2023.

Rose’s perspective

Advantages of Age, our social enterprise which challenges the media narrative around ageing as well as producing this Substack magazine which hopefully does the same thing through multiple older voices talking about ageing differently – as in not obeying society’s norms of retirement and slippers. Or cruises and cocktails. Or reducing all oldsters to grannies and grandpas! Urgh, that is still going on. Or treating our readers as though they are all partnered up. Lots of oldsters relish their singledom. And bigging up our Sports Stars – there are more and more older athletes running, doing ironman competitions, climbing, out there. Not to mention wonderfully colourful Style Queens and Kings. Flamboyance has always been one of our things.

The Sunday Times Hot Tub Shoot.

In 2017, we did an interview with Sunday Times journalist, Dolly Alderton in Suzanne’s hot tub in Kilburn. There were a group of us – exquisitely adorned – flashing our rock n’roll credentials. She called us ‘the punks of getting older’ and that was a pivotal point in our evolution. We were creating an alternative tribe and loving it. This wasn’t just a protest about the way the Daily Mail was portraying us as unattractive wrinklies, it was about creating a warm, collaborative community. It was about not feeling alone as we get older, it is about being seen and cherished in all our ways of facing into age and the ageing process.

The Facebook Group – Advantages of Age, Babyboomers and Beyond – played a huge part in that feeling of togetherness and also the feeling that we were forming an intimate space where fear of dying, loss of purpose, vulnerability could be discussed as well as all the glorious inspiring examples of oldster blooming of which there are many in the group. There is a huge appreciation within this private group that this is a place where we can discuss stuff like funerals or dying loved ones without the conversations falling into cliché and insensitivity. There is a lot of thought that goes into the comments threat. And it’s not all about how we’re going grey with attitude. We’re a bit more nuanced than that.

For many years,

Suzanne Noble

and I dreamt of having an awards ceremony. But we thought we needed an events’ organiser and huge sponsorship so it seemed impossible. We even went to see the Bloomsbury Ballroom as a possible venue. Dream on – the tickets would have had to cost hundreds as the hire fee was something like £30,000. We even crowdfunded to pay an agency to find us sponsorship. The main guy seemed lovely and convinced they could do it easily. They didn’t find us one sponsor and they did take the majority of our crowd funded money.

We were outraged but we also had to sit down in September 2023 and do it ourselves. We went through our address books. Some people that we thought would help – notably didn’t, other surprisingly did – a friend of my son’s became our lead sponsor. We found a much cheaper, very friendly, historic venue – the gorgeous old music hall, Hoxton Hall. It was a lot of work but the result – the receivers of the awards being so surprised and so grateful for the recognition – really made it all worthwhile. And people really did turn up in all their exquisitely individual sartorial splendour.

Ruth Fox at the Awards 2023 taken by Mish Aminoff.

I didn’t intend to do an Awards Ceremony every year.

Suzanne Noble

may have had other ideas. However, 2025 – two years later – seemed like another right time. Now we knew a few things and had a wonderful venue. And more time to find sponsorship and organise the categories. It hasn’t been easy but certainly easier.

Just now, I looked at the film of the Awards 2023. Tears filled my eyes. Seeing Peter Robertshaw from the pretty unknown No Frills Social which takes place in Stoke Newington and has a disco for Over 50s plus haircuts – almost cry with wonder as he received their award – made me understand once again how important they are to do. People are joining the Pro-Ageing movement all over the country and we hope to reflect that in our awards. At the last one, we had people travelling from Hastings to Nottingham to Bristol to Brighton in order to attend.

Our Style King 2023, Jama Elmi on show down Portobello Rd.

Our categories in 2025 range from Grooviest End of Life organisation – and believe me, this is a very alive category funnily enough, the death business is opening up so much more – to Sports Star – one of the shortlisted is Dorothy Fraser who at 88 wins her category in the 200m – and Non-Fiction – all books about getting older – and Pro-Ageing Activist which includes

Avivah Wittenberg-Cox

who hosts a podcast about longevity as well as writing pieces on her Substack Elderberries. We also have some crazily brilliant Style Queens and Style Kings. I am hoping that 2023’s unforgettable Jama Elmi will also come along. Everyone wanted to have their photo taken with him last time.

Recently Suzanne and completed the shortlisting – a long process where we sift out all the information about the nominees and decide on finalists and the best part of that process is sending out the emails letting people know that they are finalists. Older creatives, sports people, Startup School for Seniors entrepreneurs, writers etc are all used to being under the radar. Youth still captivates all the media glare. And it’s such a delight to bathe them in a little limelight and allow them to bask.

One such person is

Gary Coulton

who is a finalist in the Inspirational Personal Story category. Gary had a career as an academic but always felt like a fish out of water until when he was 65 – he’s 69 now – he discovered he was ADHD and autistic. This has led him to understanding and a feeling of belonging, he’s written a booked called Demons to Champions – how I learnt to love my maverick mind about the voyage that he’s been on. When he got the email, he immediately got in touch. He had a look at our Substack and was instantly excited. He said he felt as though he’d found his tribe.

As our community grows, so does our message.

Asanga Judge won the Sports God award in 2023 - photo by Richard Kaby.

And why are we doing it? Because old is still a dirty word and Advantages of Age believes in celebrating getting older and doing it in style. Because we’re alive and kicking and ready to mark all those inspiring beings and organisations who are part of the societal change that we’d like to see. Let’s big up the change-makers. Because we want to call out ageism at the same time. There are Granny headlines every day, there are people in the press talking constantly about age being just a number, about people looking great for their age, about looking young being the eternal aim. Fuck that, we’re sick of it. Time for an age revolution. The UK’s population is ageing, the 2011 census showed that 49% of the population was aged over 40, while in 2021, it was recorded that 18.6% of people were aged over 65 and it’s getting bigger. Advantages of Age is on a mission to change the record – by not only reclaiming old but also re-imagining it. The

Advantages of Age

Awards 2025 are about re-visioning age for a modern age.

Suzanne’s perspective

I wasn’t sure I would be here writing this after our last experience back in 2023, when the stress of putting on the event caused both

Rose Rouse

and I to rethink our enthusiasm for hosting it again.

Doing anything for the first time inevitably involves a steep learning curve - it doesn’t matter whether it’s riding a bike, learning a language, or, indeed, hosting an awards ceremony. There’s always a moment, usually at the start, when your inner monologue is screaming, “Don’t do this. It’s not fun!” For a long while in 2023, especially after being let down by a sponsorship agency we hired to help fund the event, we felt that way. That experience was incredibly stressful and had required us both to dig deep into our most vulnerable selves to find the courage to crowdfund the money we needed. Then, Rose and I had to pull together to produce the event.

Nikki Kenward and her husband, Nikki won the Late in Life Emerging Performer Award.

That was us during our first attempt at hosting a fabulous, flamboyant, yet also deeply serious celebration of the people and organisations championing pro-ageing. As one of the early ‘disrupters’ back in 2016 attempting to rewrite the rulebook on ageing, we had become aware of others—people and businesses—who we believed deserved recognition. If for no other reason, it’s because it’s far easier to change the narrative on ageing when you’re not trying to do it alone.

Of course, since we started Advantages of Age nearly 10 years ago, multiple organisations have entered the space. Yet, it still feels to me that we don’t collaborate nearly as much as we should. The Awards are an attempt to address that, by showcasing so many others doing great work to help us all feel better about ourselves and be seen in the world.

Even so, there are only two of us, and creating an Awards ceremony we’re both proud of is an exhausting, though rewarding task.

Richard Kaby and friend at the Awards 2023.

One aspect of the Awards that Rose and I insisted on is that the ceremony must be both fun and serious. If you’ve looked at the categories, for example, you’ll see it’s an eclectic mix - from Style King and Queen to Grooviest End-of-Life Organisation. That eclecticism runs through the entire organisation—we’re not easily definable.

Take our Startup School for Seniors, for example, a government-funded programme that supports older people in turning ideas into businesses. People come to us with all sorts of ideas, and

Mark Elliott

(an Advantages of Age Co-Director) and I help them explore whether there’s money to be made.

Our Substack magazine, edited by Rose, is chock-full of personal stories, making it a joy to read. I enjoy dipping into it from time to time to explore the rich back catalogue of essays. Meanwhile, our Facebook group is always lively, with discussions spanning a wide range of topics.

Marisa Mendez who is a finalist in the Style Queen 2025 category holds up our programme. Taken by Richard Kaby.

It feels fitting, then, that the Awards reflect all the wonderful, diverse aspects of our organisation, as well as those who are doing their part to combat the negativity surrounding ageing.

I am looking forward to the 20th November with excitement and also the opportunity to meet so many of the fabulous people I’ve spoken to over the years face to face.

You can buy your tickets here -