Repair Cafe - 23rd November 2019

What another great experience at our 4th Chinnor Repair Cafe held at the Village Hall on the 23rd November

It did seem to be a bit slow at times but it was steady and our Fixers had plenty to do.

Time to share some results, we had:

28 broken items brought in, of that 19 items were repaired, 6 items couldn't be repaired and for 3 of the items, appropriate advice was given. Well done team!

In all 51 kilos of broken items were brought to the cafe  – 41 kilos of which were electrical.

To give you an idea of the types of items we will have a go at, these were the items brought in:

2 food mixers, a blender, an iron, a formula dispenser, a CD player, a toaster, a clock, clock radio and radio, 3 table lamps, a floor lamp and 2 Dyson hand held vacuum cleaners! 

We also had a baby monitor, a telephone cable, a coat, 2 saucepans 1 for a handle repair and the other for a lid repair, a cushion that needed a bit of solder on the battery operation, a chair, a vacuum cleaner and then separately, a vacuum cleaner hose, an earring for gluing, a foot pump and a pair of slippers.

Not bad at all. 

We had some very positive feedback and some of the comments were: 

• Friendly, welcoming and very knowledgeable
• Please teach young people to preserve skills
• Such helpful people, very knowledgeable
• Speedy and efficient - very quick to repair
• Fantastic, great
• Absolutely loved it - very positive
• Wonderful
• Helpful advice

Special thanks to Tina for keeping us all well lubricated and to Sandy for ensuring the smooth flow of the process.

Our next Repair Café will be on Saturday 15th February 2020 which ties in with the The Big Fix 2020! The Big Fix is Britain’s BIGGEST repair cafe! All around the country, fixers are gathering on 15th Feb to fix more items in one day than ever before. I think this will be an extra special event. I hope that we will see you there!

If you would like to get involved either as a Fixer, Facilitator or helping out on refreshments, please email me at greeningchinnor@gmail.com.

Repair café – Local Repair Businesses

Greening Chinnor run local repair cafés in Chinnor, our next one being on Saturday 23rd November at Chinnor Village Hall and we would like to promote local repair companies at the café.

As you may or may not be aware, repair cafés are not about taking business away from local businesses but are a tool to promote repair and passing on skills. We have our fixers who will do what they can, but we cannot guarantee that we can fix an item, plus we only have a limited time when the café is open.

We are keen to promote local repair businesses and bring them into this process. To this end, we are putting together a list of local repair businesses that we can promote to our visitors if there is an item that is too complicated or outside our scope. If you run such a business and would be interested in being on our repair companies list, please contact me at greeningchinnor@gmail.com.

If you are interested in coming along and either helping us or just to have a look please feel free to do so. You will be made more than welcome.

Next Chinnor Repair Café

Our next Repair Café will be held on Saturday 23rd November at Chinnor Village Hall 10:00 am – 1:00 pm (last item accepted 12:30 pm).

You can bring any small household electrical item (e.g. kettle, radio, hifi, lamp, food mixers, etc). All electrical items, if accepted will have a safety test carried out before return. Please don’t bring white goods or anything you can’t carry. You can also bring toys and mechanical items. We probably won’t have spare parts, but hopefully will be able to recommend what is needed. We have our fixers who will do what they can, but we cannot offer any guarantee that we can fix an item.

You can bring any broken item that needs gluing – e.g. china, plastic toys etc. We will have various kinds of glue such as araldite, super glue, etc.

You can bring clothes or textiles that need a little stitching whether they’re clothes, bags, accessories, cushion covers, blankets or other fabric items and our team of seamstresses will see what they can do.

This is a brilliant way to make a difference in reducing your ‘waste’ whilst learning how you can make simple repairs. It’s also a great social event where everybody is chatting and sharing experiences and ideas.

This is a free event, although donations towards running the event would be appreciated.

We are keen to increase our pool of fixers and helpers so we can help more people at each event. Please get in touch if you have skills to share to help our event be successful and run smoothly. If you are interested either pick up the phone and give me a call on 07973 788339 or email me at greeningchinnor@gmail.com

Repair Cafe