December 2019, Repair Cafe

Hi, this is Bernie, chief cook and bottle washer at Repair Cafe Weymouth. My daughter Samphyre, visiting from America, was excited to be involved, so she joined me in managing the flow of Electrical, Electronic and IT repairs from visitor, through the repairer, PAT tester, reception and then out of the door. This always seems to be the busiest area, with myself and 1 other looking after 7 repairers. We had 14 repairers in all, and another 11 volunteers, all in Christmas jumpers and many in reindeer antlers, making everything run smoothly.

This month 15 and 47 year old mixers came in, both with smoke coming out of them. Samphyre had been making ice cream with hers at the time!  After being given some tender loving care by Robert Hunt both are as good as new. Yayy!! Samphyre said that she would never have thought of having it repaired, so it was a win-win.

During the last year, I have been much more aware of the damage our throw-away society does to the environment, and hope that the ever-increasing numbers of Repair Cafés that are opening up across Europe, will start bucking the downward trend.

This event was as busy as anything, however we were really well organized.  Mel is our dedicated PAT tester for all electrical items, so everything is tested for safety before it leave the Repair Café.  We needed to re-organise this area, so watch this space to find out what we did.

73 tickets were given out, 7 jobs not done. Some items were taken home by repairers to finish – the visitor is then contacted to collect said item.

We repaired things like a fibre optic Christmas tree and snowman, and a much loved singing Bing Crosby too!

The happy customer said about the Bing Crosby model from her youth “Amazing! Never thought I’d see it working-made me cry!”

Samphyre also joined us all at the Marquis of Granby, where 30+ volunteers shared a Christmas meal and celebrated all their hard work since we started in May.  It was a good atmosphere and we took the opportunity to get to know one another.

Next month, it will be a year since we suggested this crazy idea of holding a monthly Repair Café. Here are some comments from our supporters:

• Fantastic – Community leading environment and recycling
• Very good. Very impressed (Golf umbrella re soldered)
• Excellent advice – will get part and return in January! (Corrode cigarette lighter plug)
• Fantastic and I’ve learned how to repair things too (Necklace and bracelet)
• Thank you to Jane for repairing the zip on my golf bag today
• Thank you very much for repairing plate today very happy indeed

I look forward to talking with you after the January event.

Bernie

November 2019, Clockfest!

We’ve had our first AGM, which was a jolly affair, despite the fact that I was totally out of my comfort zone. But I was able to report that we have a ‘Volunteer Group of the Year’ award! We’ve come so far since our ‘kick-off meeting’ in February and starting our Trial Run just seven weeks later with a full complement of highly skilled volunteers. In November we had 2 new volunteers – Jon, who runs Fancy’s Farm, on IT, and Ruth on Sewing. I hope they come back. We need more volunteers to help people fill in forms and maybe on Reception, even if just to cover absences. It’s all very high energy and it’s fun! I was able to get my own repairs done this time, Lelly fixed my ring and has taken my bracelet home to silver solder in a less pressured environment.

Our regular 2 volunteers, who have had success in repairing clocks, were not at our October event so the clocks had a party on 9 November.

It was a first appearance for an Art Deco clock that was going too fast. Alan adjusted the chiming mechanism of a Smiths mantle clock and gave advice on how to move a grandfather clock. He found that a Victorian mantle clock had a broken spring and could recommend a solution. An ornate clock we had seen before needed fine adjustment to the escapement mechanism. Steve fixed a clock that was gaining time.

Brian said that he was ‘over the moon’ when John fitted a new part to his fibre optic Christmas tree base.

I loved the string puppet that Bev had bought in Prague in the 1970’s. It had huge hands and was a caricature of a washer-woman. The strings were tangled.

Kerry found the polarity was reversed on a paging system and the owner reported “I was told this would have cost £300 to repair by the manufacturer. I am pleased”.

Not all repairs are successful. Robert on Electronics said that the Makita BMR104 radio had a screw down a very deep narrow hole. He is ordering some special long screwdrivers “so we will not be beaten like that again”.
A Philips toaster had special tamper-proof screws. “I think I have worked out that they are ‘external Torx’. I am ordering a set of sockets. Philips will not win!”

We’ll be in Christmas mode at our December 7 event. See you there! And some of our volunteers will be Santa’s helpers, fixing toys at the Victorian Christmas Fayre in the Palm House on December 14.

Ros Dean

Making progress October’s Repair Cafe

 When we first heard about Repair Cafe Weymouth, I offered to make the tea and Judy offered to be a gofer. If we knew then, what we know now, would we have opened our mouths? Well yes, actually!  We had no idea what we were letting ourselves in for, but wouldn’t have it any other way.

This 1960’s music box from Singapore was brought in for repair. It had previously been over wound. The Rickshaw, Tree and Lace all needed gluing. Now it is fixed, the Rickshaw wheels turn while Swan Lake plays.

‘Thank you Phil, so happy to have the music box working. Very happy memories the box holds for me, it is well loved’ Jayne Fletcher

At the October event, a day when the heavens opened, we still had 71 items come through the door. We had two new volunteers, Maggie and Dee helping more people to fill out registration forms. Myself, Bernie, Steve and Jose, facilitated the electrical team as a new role which reduced wait times and no one was turned anyone. 

‘Thank you Robert for fixing my granddaughter’s reading light, she is very pleased and thankful’ ­- Jacqui Gisborne

Lisa visited from Dorchester Repair Café which has started on the last Sunday of each month at  Sunninghill Community Center, (behind the prep school), South Court, South Walks, DT1 1EB.  You will see some of our fantastic volunteers there too.

We have a fantastic sewing team, with manual and sewing machine skills, to deal with anything from a button on your favourite shirt, mending a pocket, fixing a zip to upholstering your favourite foot stool. They needed more repairs at this event, but enjoyed the camaraderie.

We also witnessed a charming visitor with his dog and historic clock. It belonged to the last coastguard at Osmington Mills – Jim Hadwyn, who had died a year ago, in his 90’s. He was a fireman before he was a coastguard. His neighbour called on him a lot in his latter years. When he died, she saved the clock as it was going to be thrown and gave it to Kevin our visitor. He wanted it fixed, to return it as a gift. 

He will try to come next month on 9th November when a more experienced Clock repairer will be with us.  We hope it gets fixed – what a fantastic Christmas present that would make.

December’s event will be on the first Saturday of the month, 7th December as on the second weekend 14th-15th December the Palm House are holding its first ever Victorian Christmas Fayre with Santa’s workshop – where some of our volunteers will be repairing toys! If you have any old fashioned looking or wooden toys that need repairing, contact the Palm House about taking them in in advance so they can be repaired in Santa’s workshop.

By Judy Luffman and Bernie Searle

Best ever after a summer off

After 2 months off for an amazing summer of sun, sea and sausages, Repair Café Weymouth returned on Saturday 14th September for its best ever repair event. We had an amazing 93 items brought in for repair that may otherwise have ended up in landfill or, at best, left languishing unused in a loft. So popular were we that we had to politely turn people away by 11am – just 30 minutes after we opened. We repaired or provided repair advice for a massive 83% of items including sewing zips and handbags, clocks, laptops, plates, hoovers, necklaces and much more. This is an amazing achievement and we are forever grateful to our wonderfully talented volunteer repairers.

Carla

We trialed a new process to encourage our visitors to chat sociably at a table in the café area, instead of queuing. The lovely ‘Carla in the pink hat’ gave them numbered tickets as they arrived and our Triage volunteers came to them to register their broken items.

At this event we welcomed some amazing new volunteers. José, a drug and alcohol councillor, did a great job of organising our visitors as they arrived ensuring we tracked their wait in the café area.  Steve, with his common sense approach, made the decision that incoming forms should by-pass Reception, helping us to get forms to repairers more efficiently and we hope he will join the committee. Rick helped for the first time as a Mechanical repairer and Jane on Sewing.

We always welcome new volunteers so do please contact us.  We need repairers to cover absences and we always need volunteers to help make events run smoothly or help with admin tasks in the background.

If you’ve been to one of our repair events we hope that you were able to get your item repaired.  We are continually improving our whole process of receiving visitors and repairing items but are always happy to hear positive feedback and suggestions for improvement.

Otherwise do spread the word about Repair Café Weymouth.  We throw away vast amounts of stuff, which could get a new lease of life with a simple repair. One repair can save up to 24 kilos of CO2 going into the atmosphere, by preventing the need to recycle old items and manufacture/ transport new ones – and it will save you money and help save our planet.

We look forward to seeing you at our next event.  Our Repair Café events generally take place on the 2nd Saturday of the month (apart from July and August) and you’ll find us at the Palm House Café in Weymouth.

Rob Cheeseman

Thank you to repair cafe volunteers

Repair Cafe was the idea of Martine Postma who held the first ever event on the 18th October 2009 in Amsterdam. Jump forward nearly 10 years, and I saw a Facebook post from Ros, that she was thinking of starting up a Repair Cafe in Weymouth. So I did what most people do these days, I googled it to find out what a Repair Cafe was. I was intrigued and wanted to help but I can’t fix anything – my brother likes to remind me of the time I tripped the electrics in our childhood home when I was trying to change a plug. After meeting Ros and a few other volunteers I knew this would be a great benefit to the town, I sign up to volunteer thinking I would just be spending the 3 hours once a month on this project. How wrong I was. The following day Ros called and asked if I’d like to be on the committee as secretary, I jumped at this opportunity – I’d never done anything like this before, so every day I’m learning, we all are.

I’d like to thank all the fantastic volunteers that attend our event. They have given all their time, skills and have had to pay for their own parking at each event. The Repair Cafe would be an empty room without them.

I’d also like to thank Nigel at The Palm House for allowing us to take over his main cafe area as well as the function room we hire, and finally, anyone that’s visited repair cafe or read this post – THANK YOU. Our next event is on 14th September 2019 after a Summer break to refresh and improve upon how we run Repair Cafe Weymouth.

Carla

We’re still learning

 Weymouth’s Repair Cafe continues to go from strength to strength. In June we had our second event at The Palm House Cafe. It was fantastic see the local community turn out in force with broken items they would like to save from landfill. We were busy from before we opened to long after we should have closed. It’s pleasing, in our modern day throwaway society, to see so many items, from a Spectrum computer to musical instruments, from tools to clocks, being given a new lease of life.

The first two events have been outstanding, but it has also come with inevitable teething issues. We are all new to this and will continue to improve with every event.

I like numbers so I’d thought I’d share a few with you. The first event saw 85 visitors arrive with items they hoped could be saved. 12 volunteer repairers manned the tables, eager to fix the items brought in. Divided equally, each volunteer would have seen 7 items and had 17 minutes to work on it. However, it’s not as simple as this. Different volunteers specialise in different areas. You wouldn’t expect a sewing volunteer to be able to fix an iron (yes we’ve had irons… we’ll try and fix anything after all). Also, some repairs needed longer than 20 minutes to complete. Sometimes just getting the cover off proved to be the hardest part of the repair process.

Part of the ethos of a Repair Cafe is about local people gathering together to learn how to repair broken items which prevents items being sent to landfill. If an item can’t easily be repaired the visitor would be advised to see a professional. We’re not here to take work away from local trade’s people but about taking on the smaller jobs, and anything which is beyond our skills we want to be able to point you in the direction of a professionals that can help.

Over the summer the committee will work hard on ideas for improving visitor experience, including for people who arrive early, and how Repair Cafe benefit everyone in Weymouth. Our next event is on 14th September 2019. We hope to see you there.

Carla