We are pleased to report that we have had another very successful Repair Café. Not that we keep an exact count, but somewhere between 70-80 people joined us to either get something repaired or just for a cuppa, a natter and to enjoy some delicious cake.
There was a buzz of activity in the Hall, with items brought for repair ranging from some small pieces of jewellery to the largest thing you could carry into the room – an exercise bike. Obviously with the darker months upon us, some peoples’ minds have turned to being determined to keep up their exercise routines, albeit indoors, as we also had a treadmill come in. The details below give an estimate of the value of these cafés to preventing waste. But more than that, they are great community events. Perhaps one of the nicest pieces of feedback we received was from a visitor who said: “it was lovely to come” “a great atmosphere – felt like the antiques roadshow”.
We are for ever indebted to
- our amazing group of repairers who give up their time to mend items for free, often going the extra mile just because they hate for things to have to be thrown away!
- our volunteers who run the café, greet our visitors making sure that they know where to go and generally keep things running smoothly, even when the electricity goes off.
- Lastly, but by no means least, to our visitors who bring in an eclectic mix of items to keep our repairers on their toes.
We thank you all and hope to see you again next time. Please keep an eye on the Roundabout magazine for the date which we hope will be in early 2026.
Results for our 4th repair Cafe: data collated by the Restarters Community https://restarters.net/party/view/14889#devices-section
We saw 51 items for repair
The stats for our 4 Repair Cafes to date are
We have seen a total of 212 items so far with a successful repair rate of 68.4% and just 8% of the items brought along to our 4 cafes have had to be sent to landfill. The remainder of the items seen could be repaired but either needed more time than we have or spare parts. They often find their way to our next repair café or one nearby. Did you know that Cambridgeshire is a hotspot for Repair Cafes with at least one a week? https://cambridgecarbonfootprint.org/what-we-do/repair-cafes/visit-a-repair-cafe/
How do Restarters calculate environmental impact?
They say: “We’ve researched the average weight and CO2e footprint of products across a range of categories, from smartphones to t-shirts. When you enter an item that you’ve repaired, we use these averages to estimate the impact of that repair based on the category of the item.
For miscellaneous items, we apply a generic CO2e to weight ratio to estimate the impact of each successful repair.”