Greening Chinnor Repair Café 16th May 2026

The next Greening Chinnor Repair Café will be held on Saturday 16th May 2026 at St Andrew's Church, Chinnor.

Doors open at 10 am with last item accepted (depending on item) at 12:30 pm.

We can also offer the sharpening of scissors, secateurs, garden shears, kitchen knives (1 item per household).

 

Repair Cafe

Our next Repair Café will be held on Saturday 5th July 10 am - 12:30 pm at St Andrew's Church. Hope to see you there.

 

Greening Chinnor Repair Café

We are pleased to announce that our Repair Cafés are resuming in July at a new venue. The café will be held on Saturday 20th July at St Andrew’s Church from 10am until 1 pm with the last item accepted at 12pm. The plan is to host three cafés at St Andrew’s between July and early November.

Our Repair Café is a welcoming space for people to bring various items for mending; an opportunity to come together as a community, learn new skills, save money, and help our local environment. Donations are welcomed, which will be split between Greening Chinnor and St Andrew’s but there is no pressure or expectation.

You can bring:

• any small household electrical item (e.g., kettle, radio, hifi, lamp, etc.). Please don't bring white goods or anything you can't carry.
• toys and mechanical item
• clothes or textiles - we can help with buttons, simple patches, minor sewing repairs
• small leather items that need repairing
• broken items that needs gluing - e.g. china, plastic toys etc. We will have various kinds of glue such as araldite, super glue etc for you to use.

New for 2024 we can offer advice on book repair and restoration and possibly minor repairs!

We can’t guarantee we can fix everything, but we will have a go.

We are currently on the lookout for a few more volunteers, either to share their mending skills at the cafés or to help behind the scenes and/or welcome people on the day. You don’t need to be a professional to volunteer - just someone with some basic skills who is happy to share what they know. There is no pressure to undertake any repairs that you are not confident with.

Please get in touch with Linda at greeningchinnor@gmail.com if you would like to get involved.

Repair Cafe

 

Repair Cafe 15th February 2020 & Big Fix 2020 Results

On Feb 15th we joined 65 other Repair Cafes across the country in the Big Fix 2020. This event was organised by Recycle Devon and as well as making this event Britain's Biggest Repair Cafe it aimed to raise awareness of the work carried out at Repair Cafe's.

First a piece about our Repair Cafe followed by the amazing results from the Big Fix 2020.

Well we were really amazed as to how popular our February Repair Cafe was. It was our biggest yet! We had so many people turning up with things that needed repair that at one time we were worried we’d have to close the doors.

Photo: Keith Webley

This time in addition to our lovely regular fixers, we had leather work and tool sharpening for the first time. This proved extremely useful for our group of seamstresses who were absolutely delighted to have their scissors sharpened and reset. In total we had:

Photo: Keith Webley

• 12 Fixers, 6 Facilitators/Helpers
• 76 items brought in for repair which kept our team of fixers busy for the whole session
• 87% items were either fixed or advice given (69 kg)
• 10 items failed to be fixed (27 kg)

Some of the more interesting and unusual items that were brought back to life included an extremely vintage sewing machine foot pedal (good stuff Ted), a couple of electric trains and some much loved Christmas lights. A huge thank you and well done to everybody who took part.We can only run these cafes with the support  of our Fixers and Helpers.

Photo: Keith Webley

Photo: Keith Webley

Big Fix 2020 Results

As you know our Repair Cafe was being run in conjunction with the Big Fix 2020 organised by Recycle Devon in and attempt to have the biggest Repair Cafe ever. Well we've fed our stats to the Big Fix and preliminary results of the day are:

• Number of participating Repair Cafés: 66
• Total fixes: 2253
• Total number of items brought : 2981
• 75.5% of total items able to be fixed
• 918 volunteers, fueled by 1748 cups of tea and coffee and 931 slices of cake
• 1974 attendees who brought items to be fixed

Breakdown by category

• Tool sharpening 14%
• Bikes 2%
• Other 19%
• Textiles 18%
• Electronic 8%
• Electrical 32%

Items that needed a part to be fixed 397
Items not fixed at the event 516

Estimated over £100,000 of consumer spending avoided
Estimated 45,000 – 55,000 kg of carbon avoided

A huge thank you to Catherine Causley for making this amazing event possible and to all 66 Repair Cafes around the UK.

Big Fix 2020 - Greening Chinnor Repair Cafe

We're really pleased to be taking part in the The Big Fix 2020. Chinnor will be 1 of 75 repair cafes that are happening across the country on the same day! Never has there been a repair event attempted on this scale before. The goal is to fix as many broken, worn and once loved possessions in a single morning.

The national event is being coordinated by Devon County Council in partnership with all participating repair cafes and follows the success of The Big Fix in Exeter last year when volunteers broke the record for the number of items repaired at a single repair café. You can find out more about the Big Fix 2020 here.  This is a lovely video from the Malvern Hills Repair Cafe which explains what a repair café is, what happens when you get there and what the rational behind them is. https://www.facebook.com/MalvernHillsRepairCafe/videos/895130800650253/

So, when and where:

Chinnor Village Hall, Chinnor, OX39 4PG. Doors open at 10:00 am last item accepted 12:30.

You can bring any household goods that you can carry and that needs repairing. No white goods please.

We have a team of sewing repairers, electrical and mechanical repairers and *STOP PRESS* for the first time ever we can offer sharpening skills too. Plus, our every popular 'Glue' table.

Please note that we can’t promise to repair. We will do our best and to advise on alternatives. Help us to help you! Please bring all parts that would help us test the repair such as: power cords, mains adaptors, CDs, remote controls, etc. If you would like to pre-register your broken item you can do so on our Registration Form.

So can you come along even if you don't have anything to repair? Yes!

We want to raise awareness of repairing and reusing instead of ‘throwing away’, so please come and watch volunteers perform the repairs and learn from them and help support us by having a cup of tea and cake. So come along and be part of history!

Big Fix 2020 - Chinnor Repair Cafe

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

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.

Repair Cafe 29th June 2019 - Booking Form

Plans are now being finalised for our latest Repair Cafe in Chinnor. We will be open from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm and will accept items up to 12:00 pm (to give the fixers a chance to fix things). Check out our FAQs page to see the sort of items we accept.

If you would like to let us know what you indend to bring, our Booking Form can be found here. It is a short form but it will give us an expectation of what will be coming in.

Please note that we cannot guarantee a time slot or that we will be able to fix your item.

Our Next Repair Cafe