Triple Celebration for Repair Cafe
When volunteer repairers gather for the next Royston Repair Café at 2pm on Saturday 18th February to keep broken items in use for longer, they have three reasons to celebrate.
The February event is their 30th community repair session, and is also their 9th birthday. Nationally, in those nine years there have been great developments on the community repair front. When it was started in 2014, Royston Repair Café was the first in Hertfordshire and one of only twelve in the country. There are now over 300 across the UK, including those in and around Cambridge inspired by Royston’s example.
A third cause for celebration is that Hertfordshire Councillor Fiona Hill recently approved a Locality Budget award to the group, delighting organiser Chris Lee. “The grant will pay for our insurance cover for a year which is great – we’re keen to ensure that Repair Café visitors and repairers are protected, although we’ve never had a claim! Insurance and venue hire are our main expenses and we want to be able to continue to provide our community repair service for free, so we rely on small grants and individual donations.”
At the last Repair Café in November, talented repairers fixed over 50% of the broken items brought in, including a festive musical decoration brought back to life by dedicated repairer Richard in time for Christmas (see and hear the decoration in action on the Repair Café Facebook page).
To book in a broken item for a free assessment (and hopefully a fix) on 18th February at the Coombes Community Centre, go to https://roystonrepaircafefebruary18.eventbrite.co.uk. In case of difficulty with online bookings, send details about your broken item – make, model and problem – and your name to leeinroyston@aol.com or call 07962 157589
