March 2022 Our first event in 2 years, Top Club and £860 for Ukraine

 March 2022 Our First event in 2 years, Top Club and £860 for Ukraine

 After 2 years in Coronavirus pandemic, we still needed to find much bigger premises, where both our visitors and volunteers could be well-spaced and feel safe. We had found Top Club 6 months previously but it took a few months to get permission from Dorset Council to use a room at their premises that is used once a week by Childrens’ Services and is not normally available for hire. That gave us 2 big rooms with lots of power points for repairs and a café area, outside seating and a free car park. Fantastic!

Would people be able to find Top Club? Our previous location at the Palm House was an iconic landmark and central. We had 1400 followers on Facebook but we needed to appeal to new audiences. The Dorset Echo published a short article and BBC Radio Solent and Keep 106 radio helped to spread the word.

We had a lost a few volunteers who had become involved with other activities, or moved away or were still being cautious about venturing into potentially crowded places. We recruited new ones, glued the new address onto posters, flyers and business cards, got as much publicity as we could and we were thrilled to have our first event at Top Club on Saturday 12 March.

At first, it looked like we were not going to be busy but we quickly dismissed that idea. Both visitors and volunteers had been saving up their repairs for 2 years. All our repairers were kept busy. We saw vacuum cleaners, record players, computer gaming devices, garden shears and secateurs for sharpening, lawn mowers, lamps, toasters, clocks, bread-makers, a laptop, drill, garden statue, jewellery, music box, curtains, remote control car, sewing machine, leather sofa cushion cover, jeans, tent, bag, tent, ornaments etc.

We fixed a Dansette radio from the 1950’s.   One of our electronics repairers, Robert, prefers to fix things in his workshop at home. Most of my repairs went to Robert. J   A  lady brought in 2 lampshades with holes in them. Phil can work magic. He glued the missing piece in to the Tiffany lampshade and rebuilt the missing piece in the acrylic lampshade with superglue. The photos show work in progress prior to the polishing stage.

Carol wasn’t at the event but she gleefully agreed to work on a Western leather gunbelt, complete with holster and bullet loops.  The lining leather is glued on and the owner would like it stitched. Carol has a diamond tipped awl and a template to make the holes evenly all the way around the thick leather belt. She will sew it by hand and clean the belt with a home-made leather balm. It’s a very long job but she’s a leather enthusiast.

The remote-controlled dalek was another job repaired by Robert. Apparently, it had never worked. It does work now and frantically orders “Exterminate!”.

There was a B&O Beogram too. Do you remember B&O hi-fi equipment? It was very stylish and they are now collectors’ items. A B&O Beogram something like this one was brought in. We love a good story. Peter told us that it was presented to his father when he retired in 1973. He had been the Director of the Atomic Research Establishment at Winfrith. That was a very valuable gift.  We were using the SumUp card payment machine for the first time. Britain was also doing all it could to support the displaced people of the Ukraine. When we spotted that SumUp would double any donations made to the Ukraine through their website, we agreed to give all we could spare from the donations from this event to support the Red Cross efforts there.

People were very generous. We started the event with a balance of £26 in the bank. There were a lot of things we need for the Repair Café but we decided they could wait. We donated £430 to the Ukraine and SumUp doubled it so we raised £860. Fantastic!

We also sent a shoe box full of mobile phones to the Ukraine.

 We saw 91 repairs. 5 are still being worked upon. Of the 86 completed repairs, 83% were fixed or partly fixed and advice was given.      We also sent a shoe box full of mobile phones to the Ukraine.

 We saw 91 repairs. 5 are still being worked upon. Of the 86 completed repairs, 83% were fixed or partly fixed and advice was given. 

The committee, Ros, Bernie, Judy and Audrey, are really proud of our volunteers and our visitors. Thank you all! 

Ros Dean