A Repair Café – coming soon to a place near you!

Julie Furnivall writes:

Do you feel angry when you read about the huge quantities of electrical goods, textiles, and “stuff” that we throw away? So do we!

A few of us from Luton Green Hub and from Luton Friends of the Earth decided to do something about the massive quantity of things that go to landfill. So, we put the word out about what we wanted to do, and we rapidly gathered around 30 people who were passionate about trying to fix things.

It’s been nearly a year in the planning, but we are now almost ready to launch Luton’s very own Repair Café. You might be wondering what a Repair Café is.  Read on ….

A repair café is a group of volunteers who meet on a regular basis (usually one Saturday a month) in a place where people can bring things that they don’t want to throw away.  The volunteers try to mend the clothing, electrical equipment, bicycles etc that the public bring in. While the volunteers are casting their expert eyes over the things that have been brought in, members of the public can share a cup of tea and a piece of cake, or similar. Our Repair Café is intended to be sociable and fun, so one of our aims is to reduce social isolation. Everything provided in a Repair Café is free of charge, but the people who come are asked to make a donation to go towards the costs of things like insurance, hall hire and refreshments.

Members of the public can also watch their possessions being repaired and can learn from the volunteer repairers how to care for their things.  For this reason, acquiring additional skills is another of our aims – and of course, the repairers will be constantly learning as they are faced with ever more challenges.

So why has it taken us almost a year to plan Luton’s Repair Café?

Well, we want to make sure we get it right!  I personally am obsessive about health and safety and the legal documentation, and I want to make sure that everything we do meets the highest standards.

To make sure we get it right, we decided to visit all the Repair Cafés in nearby towns. We had such a lovely welcome everywhere and learnt a lot from our neighbours at the Stevenage and to Hitchin Repair Cafés.

The next stage in our journey was to join the international Repair Café Federation, which is based in Amsterdam. Paying for our membership in Euros was a challenge, and receiving e-mails in Dutch was even more of a challenge. However, we now have a very detailed manual (in English!) about how to set up a repair café, and much more besides.

We then had a “dress rehearsal” when we ran a mini repair café, just looking at our own possessions. Even though it was only a rehearsal, we carried out a detailed written risk assessment of everything we did, and we used full documentation. We learnt a great deal about the need for a booking system, about managing the flow of people, and about the exact wording for our paperwork. Above all else, though, we had huge fun and developed massive enthusiasm for the future. 

What are our plans now? Well, we need to identify and firm up a location (or locations) for future repair cafes. We’re looking for an organisation (perhaps a faith organisation?) that will share our enthusiasm for developing this community resource and will help us to develop. We need a largish accessible hall (to begin with, we need it just once a month), plus storage for small tools and consumables. While we can pay for hall hire, we do – of course – want to keep costs to a minimum. Do you know of any organisations that can help?

We are also continuing to develop our database of willing volunteers. We particularly need someone with food hygiene qualifications to help with the provision of refreshments, and we need a qualified first aider. Could you be that person?

Very long term, we have loads of ideas for how we could develop. Perhaps a library of things; some skills workshops; clothing swaps; links with groups of skilled asylum seekers who are not allowed to do paid work but could volunteer. Or perhaps links with allotment holders to prevent food wastage …. The ideas just go on and on. But we need to walk before we run.

Finally, if you share our enthusiasm for preventing waste to landfill, and you want to join in, in whatever way, then please do get in touch. My name is Julie Furnivall and my phone number is 07890 004521. My e-mail is Julie.furnivall@icloud.com. Thank you!