First Chiswick Repair Café Hailed as a Huge Success
Over thirty broken or faulty items repaired by twenty volunteers
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The first ever Chiswick Repair Café was held at Christ Church on Turnham Green earlier this month and the organisers are hailing it as an overwhelming success.
Taking place on International Repair Day, the venture was launched on Saturday 15 October and more than 30 broken or faulty items were brought along, most of which were successfully repaired.
Over 20 volunteers with repair expertise participated in repairing, teaching skills and advising people on how to mend their items.
There was a variety of success stories, including fixes to small electric items such lamps, phones, laptops, vacuum cleaners and a massage belt; clothes hemmed, holes darned, a precious heirloom necklace rethreaded, and someone who was encouraged to finish knitting a sweater that had last been worked on 25 years ago.
Items repaired included a children's bike
Other items recovered include kitchen knives and garden shears sharpened, bikes that were oiled and tuned, children’s furniture glued together and picture frames fixed.
The venture was started by Charlotte, Jill, Kate and Marie-Claire, a group of local residents who are involved with various green initiatives around Chiswick and are part of the Hounslow Environmental Champions programme.
Chiswick Repair Cafe Team: Kate Hollis, Charlotte Bullock, Jill Spencer and Marie-Claire Meisels (left to right)
The Repair Café is a voluntary initiative to reduce waste, share repair skills and enhance the local community. People bring broken/worn items to the Repair Cafe and the volunteers help them to mend it, or advise what else can be done. Visitors pay for the parts and are asked to make a donation to the Repair Cafe running costs.
The offering will generally include:
• Small electrical /electronic repairs
• Carpentry (e.g. gluing chairs)
• Toy repairs
• Computers & laptops (not mobile phones)
• Knife & tool sharpening
• Sewing repairs: mending /darning
• Small bike repairs
The organisers say, “We are delighted with how the first event was received and the positive comments we heard from people who came along: ‘Such a great idea!’; ‘Brilliant’; ‘Excellent!’; ‘Absolutely delighted, I’ll wear this all the time now.’
“We would like to say a very big thank you to all our volunteers and community members for their efforts in helping to launch the Chiswick Repair Cafe. It was wonderful to see so many conversations happening, industrious fixing, repair advice being given and mending camaraderie among volunteers and visitors.
“We see that the Repair Cafe can really help save items from being unnecessarily thrown away and contribute to a more sustainable society. There is clearly a need for a repair cafe in Chiswick and we look forward to welcoming more people at the next event in November.”
The next event will be held on Saturday 19 November, at Christ Church Turnham Green from 10.30am to 1pm.
For further information contact: Chiswickrepaircafe@gmail.com
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November 10, 2022
