Our Inaugural Repair Cafe!

It was a hubbub of activity at 1pm, Sunday 4th October in the community room at the Park Branch Library on Page Street. Repair volunteers were arriving with their tools, bakers were dropping off plates of homemade muffins, cakes and cookies, and general helpers were moving tables and putting up signs. Soon the room was transformed with labelled stations pronouncing ‘Woodwork’, ‘Appliances’, ‘Sewing’ and ‘Electronics’. The entrance to the room was set up with a Check-In table where Bailey and Matthew were busy getting to grips with registration forms, waivers and weighing scales, Anna was arranging the baked goods, Justin and Emma (our ‘runners’) were figuring out who could repair what to be able to assign the incoming broken things to the right person. Kinshuk was on hand to do anything else. And Zaid of Slow Street Coffee set up his cart outside to hand out free coffee.

We were ready! Abby and Samantha (baker volunteers) were first in line with some clothing for repair and soon Erica on Check-Out rang the bicycle bell for our first success – a miraculous 3-minute repair of a hole in a sweater – and we cheered! The bell kept ringing, and everyone kept cheering for the rest of the afternoon. There was a steady stream of patrons through the door bringing clothes, jewelry, appliances and electronics that our runners matched with repairers and then great collaborations ensued, and patrons watched their thing being studied, unscrewed, soldered, tweezered and stitched.

• The oldest thing repaired? A 100-year old rosary by Kevin
• The grooviest thing repaired? A 1970’s record player by Jenna and Matt
• The best trio-team effort? A pair of shorts by April, Asha and Jude
• The best quartet-team repair effort? A CD player and a DVD player by Alex, Vishnu, Nathan and Curtis
• The longest-broken repair? A necklace by Taran
• The most vigorous repair? A shopping trolley by Cyrus and Kevin (some serious sanding)
• The most unexpected repair? A toaster by Jenna (notoriously hard according to Repair Café International)
• The most colorful thing repaired? An orange swimming float by Pete (which was actually whisked off site to an industrial sewing machine)
• The best patron-turned-repairer? Toby who sewed on his own button while Lilly repaired his jeans pocket
• The most patient patron? Clemmy and her young son Eden who waited while Vishu and Curtis diligently tried to repair a speaker and an alarm clock but they were too complex and too simple respectively… Luckily the baked goods on hand kept spirits high (especially for Eden)

All too soon 4.30pm came around and the stream of patrons dried up. The final cakes were nibbled by the team, we took down the signs and read our reviews in the visitor’s book. 

Thank you to all our patrons who trusted us with their things, and to those who provided generous donations. 

Thank you again to all our volunteers – Vishnu, Nathan, Curtis, Taran, Geoff, Pete, April, Jude, Lilly, Matt, Jenna, Kevin, Cyrus and Alex (repairers); Matthew, Bailey, Erica, Kinshuk, Anna, Justin, Emma (Logistics helpers); Abby, Samantha, Johanna (bakers) and @linkedin.official who took photographs and Zaid of Slow Street Coffee who gave away his delicious coffee.