Today our Repair Cafe celebrated its third birthday! What began as an idea inspired by the Dutch movement (repaircafe.org) has now marked three years at The Pound arts centre in Corsham, where I work.
Since 2013 we have made nearly 200 repairs which means these items have not gone to landfill. Our volunteers have helped people to fix broken toasters, clothing, chairs and even a puppet. Today’s items included a backpack, pair of trousers, coffee machine and a lamp.
Sadly this Kenwood record player couldn’t be fixed with the materials that were available, but we’re hopeful the owner will be able to pick up a replacement belt online:
And we all finished with a well deserved slice of cake! Happy Birthday Corsham Repair Cafe!
Second-Hand Tales 
Such a great idea. I believe we have one here in Bath – I must get along to check it out.
I’d be really interested to know if there’s one up and running in Bath as someone contacted me about it ages ago. I know there’s one in Bristol and they’re organising a Re-use Festival next month which looks really interesting (link here Bristol Reuse Festival) Hope all is well with you x
We have had a repair cafe in Farnham Surrey for 2 years and it has been very successful. Our repair rate is 64%, and we have more people getting interested in it.
That’s pretty impressive! We’ve reached a bit of a crossroads with ours and are looking at running it with another local town so that people in North Wiltshire will have more choice of location. We actually struggle with getting people to come to the Repair Cafe with their broken items, so any suggestions gladly welcome 🙂
Kathryn, it’s publicity I’m afraid. Try flyers, banners outside the venue, local radio (there is precedent for this), take videos and plug on YouTube, even the local TV station. Good luck.