Repair Cafe

What an excellent event our Repair Café on the 29th June turned out to be. We had 9 fixers and a host of facilitators all ready to help with whatever came in to surprise us. We had radios, amp, TV, chainsaw, toys, lamps, slow cooker, food mixer, trousers, a coffee machine and a brooch to name just some of the items. Of the 28 items that came through the door, we were able to fix 17, give advice on 5 and unfortunately could not fix 6. Some of the items even went home with the fixers to fix in their own time, that’s dedication for you!

We have now run 3 Repair Cafés and are delighted with the level of support and interest from our fellow villagers. This means that we are confident that regular Repair Cafés will continue. 

For those who aren't aware, Greening Chinnor are part of the Community Action Group Project Oxfordshire (CAG Oxfordshire) who are funded and supported by Oxfordshire County Council (OCC). There are over 65 community action groups like us in the network and as part of this network, last year we signed up for the Oxfordshire Repair Cafe Project.

We are pleased to say that OCC and the "CAG project" won two national recycling awards for the Repair Café Oxfordshire project which was recognised by the judges for bringing together communities and positive action to reduce waste. More on this award can be found on the OCC website.

If you wondered if anything was done with the information on items coming through our Repair Cafés, then you will be interested to know that information on all the items brought in and the outcome (fixed, not fixed, advice given) is logged and then fed into two databases, CAG Oxfordshire (which in turn is fed into Oxfordshire County Council) and the "Restart Project’s" national database. This is of particular interest as the data collected at Repair Cafes and Restart Parties is very valuable, as it allows community repair groups to quantify their environmental impact and it helps "The Restart Project" document, over time, key barriers to repairables. 

Our thanks to everone who has been involved in the Chinnor Repair Cafes and enabled this project to be so successful.

Our next Repair Café will be held on Saturday 23rd November at Chinnor Village Hall.

Innovative Community Action Groups are taking on unnecessary waste

We're very excited to be part of the successful bid for funding for initial Repair Cafes in Oxfordshire. Working with The CAG Project, Oxford County Council and other Oxfordshire Community Action Groups our aim is to repair items that would be thrown away but could be mended.

We throw away vast amounts of stuff, even things with almost nothing wrong which could get a new lease of life after a simple repair. The trouble is that lots of us have forgotten that we can easily repair things ourselves.

Repair Cafés are free community events where skilled volunteers help people fix their own items to save them from going to waste. The focus is on skill-sharing and an enjoyable ongoing learning process.

Knowing how to fix things is a skill quickly being lost to our modern society and with a Repair Café invaluable practical knowledge is passed on. Items are being used for longer and don’t have to be thrown away. This reduces the volume of raw materials and energy needed to make new items. It cuts CO2 emissions for example, because manufacturing new products and recycling old ones causes CO2 to be released.

With this funding and support we plan to run two Repair Cafes in Chinnor in 2018. To do this, we need your help. What can be fixed is dependent on our volunteer repairers skill set. So if you like fixing things, have a specific skill you could share and like a challenge contact Linda at greeningchinnor@gmail.com

To find out more about this exciting project go to http://cagoxfordshire.org.uk/innovative-community-action-groups-taking-electronic-waste/

Innovative Community Action Groups are taking on electronic waste - CAG Oxfordshire

Waste electronic equipment is a huge environmental problem in the UK and abroad. There are also huge missed opportunities for communities to benefit from what is…

CAGOXFORDSHIRE.ORG.UK