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It was a very busy day in Owslebury on Saturday 6th July with the school fete taking place and our Repair Café in the afternoon. Unfortunately, the rain was ever present but the sun did manage to sneak in an appearance and everyone was out to have a fun day whatever the weather. I think it was nice for us all to have something else to focus on other than the election.
We had another very successful event and a record number of items through the door with 85% success rate by our fantastic team of volunteer repairers. We welcomed another new member to our team, again from Upham, who has kindly stepped up to join the textile ladies. We are extremely grateful to our amazing team of repairers, ‘tea ladies’, helpers and bakers who always go over and above the call of duty to try and ensure our customers have an enjoyable afternoon and can leave happy.
Each event is very different with a wide variety of items arriving at the registration table and calling on the varied skills of our repairers, which keeps things interesting. Sharpening continues to be a very popular service so we are extremely grateful that Wickes have generously donated a grinding stone to add to our equipment.
A huge thank you to everyone who came along…..the opportunity to have items repaired is obviously very popular!
Our next Repair Café will be on 19th October between 1.30-4.30pm at the Parish Hall so do look out for posters nearer the time. It will be our last event of 2024 so make the most of it. We will also have the dates for 2025 by then.
Well, cake definitely makes the world go round……or at least the GrOws Repair Café! The tea hatch was bursting with the most delicious array of homemade cakes that were totally irresistible and kept everyone happy all afternoon! Thank you to all our wonderful bakers!
This was only our second event and it was definitely bigger and better than our first, receiving 70 items this time and it is so exciting to see it GrOw! There is a lot of work that goes into organizing these events, both front-of-house and behind the scenes, so it is good to see so many people using the facility….thank you for coming and thank you for your generous donations. We had such a jolly and, more importantly, successful afternoon and repaired 56 of the 70 items received. (Please see the stats below). This is well up on our café in March and a HUGE achievement by our 10 volunteer repairers in only three hours. A massive Thank You to them all. We welcomed five new volunteer repairers on to the team this month, one who has joined us from Upham (textiles) and another from Bishops Waltham(ceramics). It is important that we can offer a good range of skills and we are gradually seeing our skill set grow, so thanks must go to the people who are generously giving their time for this to happen. Our repairers are our mainstay……they bring a lot of joy to those that have a cherished, well used item that needs tlc. One of the items brought in on Saturday was a much-loved candle holder from someone’s time as a student back in the 70s….mended! Another was a child’s bubble blowing machine….mended! Another was a child’s ceramic bedside lamp…..mended! So you can see, we can take in quite a diverse range of items.
Thank you to everyone who took part, from the repairers, “tea ladies” and numerous cake bakers to those that helped set up and take down. It can’t happen without you all so we are incredibly grateful for all the effort that you put in.
We have decided to move the date for our next event forward to the 6th July so please do put it in your diaries. Posters go up nearer the time to indicate the skills that will be on offer on the day. Keep an eye open and we look forward to welcoming you then.
We had a very successful inaugural event in Owslebury’s Parish Hall on 16th March. It started slowly, which was not a bad thing – nerves needed to be calmed! But it was not long before our nine repairers were busy returning items to working order. We saved 52kg from landfill and prevented 468kg of CO2 emissions (don’t ask how that is calculated…the Restart Project’s Fixometer does the tricky stuff for us!)
There was a very good turn out from the area….some just came for a peek or to enjoy the café (the home-made cakes were delicious!) but most came armed with things for repair. Our “master sharpener!” was kept extremely busy with a stream of secateurs needing sharpening, and we saw a good range of other things from a church hassock that needed re-backing to an electric fence that had given up the ghost. The feedback was 100% positive.
There was a definite buzz in the air (and not due to an electrical malfunction!) It was rather wonderfully old-fashioned…..people coming together to meet, share laughter, chat, enjoy delicious cakes and have a much-loved item brought back to life. What’s not to like!
We would love to get more people involved and are still looking for people to join our team of repairers. If you are a dab hand at fixing bikes, sewing, mending jewelry or just a general Mr or Mrs Fix-it then please do get in touch.
And finally, of course, thank you to all those who came along and gave it a try. It was you that made the Repair Café such a success. We hope you will spread the word, have a good rummage through those drawers and cupboards, and come back to see us on 18th May!
