Repair Cafés are workshops organised to learn how to repair our broken or defective items together, instead of throwing them away. They are also an opportunity for neighbours to meet each other and share their knowledge and experience. The aims are to avoid needless waste, promote good habits in living sustainably, and have an enjoyable experience along the way.
Items to be repaired can be fabric or clothing, jewellery, an electrical item, gadget, or almost anything else. Each volunteer repairer has their own area of expertise, and so collectively we are able to attempt many different types of repair.
The owner of the item needing to be repaired sits down with their repairer who explains as they go along what they are doing to find out what the fault is, and what they can do to put it right. Hopefully the visitor learns how they might fix a similar problem themselves in future, or at least gain an understanding of what is possible with the right tools and know-how.
Tea, coffee and cake is provided for repairers and visitors. We don’t charge for refreshments nor for repairs, but we do encourage donations to help cover costs.
Success rates are very good for fabric repairs and straightforward mechanical items. Diagnosing and fixing faults on electronic and electrical items can be more challenging given the time available. This is because of their complexity and because a specific spare part may be required. If we do not complete a repair on the day, there is often a course of action identified that can allow the owner to finish the repair themselves.
We are not trying to take work away from local businesses and there are some repairs that we will not undertake. For example, we do not try to tackle replacement of cracked screens on smartphones – these are time consuming, and there are plenty of businesses in the area who offer a service to do this.
We have generally included bicycle repairs in our repair cafes, but there is now a volunteer run weekly bike repair workshop in Stapleford – “Dr Bike” which is probably a more convenient way to tackle simple bicycle faults if you are based near there.
Our repair cafes are supported by Cambridge Carbon Footprint, who maintain a tookit shared by many repair cafes in and around Cambridge, and who publicise a calendar of repair café events including ours, on their website. You will also find our own Repair Cafes advertised on the events calendar here on the 2G3S website.
An on-line booking system opens a few weeks in advance of each repair café, which allows us to assess items coming in for repair and allocate each item to an appropriate repairer and set a time slot. You can also just turn up without booking, but you may have to wait for a repairer to come free. It is often the case that we get fully booked in advance with electrical repairs in particular, and so cannot accept any more items of that type on the day. So we do recommend booking in your item!
Here is a link to an item on the BBC website (Nov 2022) featuring our local repair cafes.