Reducing Consumption

The idea of a repair cafe for Tattenhall came from our first Engagement Day back in October. For those for whom the idea of a repair cafe is a new thing – a repair cafe is a place where the public can bring broken household appliances, clothes, textiles, or blunt tools to be fixed on the day. The idea is that otherwise these would go to landfill and replacements purchased. Repair Cafes have the main objectives of reducing landfill, reducing consumption, but also they are good places to meet others with a similar idea. It is important to us that the equipment is generally low value and would not justify a professional repair, that it would otherwise be thrown away.

So we formed a small group of Transition Tattenhall members to make it happen.
The main requirement is skilled and willing volunteers to do the fixing. We were confident that in a place like Tattenhall there would be plenty of people willing to give up a Sunday morning to try to fix broken stuff, and we were right, we have a great team of volunteers who will try most things.
We realised we needed some money to cover room hire, we wanted at least 12 months, insurance, consumables and PAT test equipment for electrical items. So we set about raising money. Tattenhall Parish Council generously have pledged £500. And we set out crowdfunding with CWAC via the SpaceHive scheme. The crowdfunding scheme requires projects to demonstrate local support by getting pledges of funding from people of Tattenhall, CWAC would then add money from their various funding budgets. We started in April and within just 5 weeks we had 40 pledges of support from people in Tattenhall of nearly £1000 in total. That was tremendous. This support enabled us to be supported by CWAC and we had enough funds for the project to run for a year. We were off!

The first repair cafe, there will be one a month, took place last Sunday (31 July). There was a brief publicity campaign through Facebook to remind people of the repair cafe and ask them to bring their broken appliances etc. We collected our volunteer repairers, 4 for the first cafe, and we opened the doors at 10 in the morning.

From the start we were busy, there was a steady stream of people coming with equipment, clothing, blunt knives, broken table, tools, all sorts. Our receptionist was kept busy booking in clients, directing them to a suitable volunteer, and organising PAT testing. Our cafe was busy serving teas, coffees, biscuits for people while they waited to be seen, or equipment to be fixed.

In the two hours we took in 16 items, we fixed 6 in the morning, made recommendations for replacement parts/batteries for 3 items, we have 3 items still with volunteers having longer term work done and we failed with 4. Saving we think 12 items from landfill, and replacement. There was also a much conversation and interest in the room about the repairs, and about Transition.

The repair cafe is a monthly event. The next one is 28th August 10-12 at Barbour Institute. Don’t forget to bring your broken stuff that might be saved, bring your repairs on the day or you can book in at tattenhall.repair.cafe@gmail.com We will be always looking for handy and skilled volunteers, we need to give people a break and cover absences, so if you would like to volunteer as repairer please do get in touch.

Tattenhall’s first repair cafe will be held on Sunday 31st July in Barbour Institute from 10am – 12noon.

A repair cafe has more emphasis on the repair than the cafe, though there will be tea, coffee and biscuits. At a repair cafe, talented volunteers aim to do simple repairs to household goods that would otherwise be thrown away into landfill, and need to be replaced with purchased, new appliances increasing the consumption of materials and energy.

The repairs need not be particularly technical, just something that, because of lack of equipment, tools or maybe confidence people do not want to try themselves.

We are only looking to repair low value items. Repairs that would be done be tradespeople or professional repairers are probably not for us, so that would exclude white goods, probably software fixes on computers

But if you have an item that needs a repair we can look at it – broken furniture, broken tools, clothing that needs repairing (new buttons/zips or a tear mended), toys that need fixing, we can sharpen kitchen knives, woodworking tools and garden tools. Electrical equipment will get a PAT test before and after repair.

Either bring along your item on Sunday 31st, or get in touch beforehand at tattenhall.repair.cafe@gmail.com. We will let you know if we think we can help. The process is free, but a donation would be nice, and similarly we cannot promise to fix it, just to do our best. If parts are needed you must supply them yourself, we’ll tell you what is needed.

We have a team of committed and skilled volunteers willing to give up a Sunday morning to make this work, so please support them – bring us your broken stuff that needs fixing – we’ll do our best to get it working, to save an item from going to landfill, and to save you having to buy new.

A huge THANK YOU to everyone who has supported our Repair Cafe fundraising campaign on Spacehive.

With generous pledges from 40 members of the wonderful local community as well Tattenhall & District Parish Council, CWaC’s Cheshire West Crowd Fund and CWAC’s Tackling Poverty Fund we have hit our fundraising target and have enough to set up the project.  

We’re busy getting everything in place for first event and the first pop up will be held on 31st July in the Barbour Institute.

You might have heard about our aim to open Repair Cafe in Tattenhall.  A repair cafe is a pop-up (ours will be in Barbour Institute) where volunteers fix your household equipment which might otherwise get thrown away. Repair cafes are not unusual, they are popping up all over the country and we think it’s time Tattenhall had one. 

This is for simple repairs on generally low value equipment where a professional repair is not needed, or cost effective – think broken chair leg, ripped cushion, broken kettle lid etc.

Repairs will be free but there will be a cost in doing this. It will cost nearly £2000 over a year for 12 events, but with set-up costs like insurance the first event will cost more than the rest. 

Transition Tattenhall have applied for funding from Cheshire West & Chester Council. We have applied via Spacehive, the crowd funding scheme CWAC uses to part fund well supported community projects.

So, to be successful we have to demonstrate that this project has support, and this is where you can help us.  You can ‘Like’ our project on Spacehive and pledge financial support from as little as £2. 

Our first milestone is 9th May when CWAC will select projects to move on to the next round based on how good they are and how well supported the project is – we’ll need as many supporters as we can find.

So please support us, ‘Like’ our Spacehive project and pledge if you are able – you can find our page here; 

Tattenhall Repair Cafe  

Transition Tattenhall are pleased to say that Tattenhall Parish Council is supporting our Repair Cafe with a grant of £500. This is much appreciated and a welcome show of confidence.