Lindfield Repair Café celebrates third anniversary

By Nicola Coughlin

November sees Lindfield Repair Café celebrate its 3-year anniversary. “This month is about giving huge thanks to all our amazing volunteers,” said founder Trevor Carpenter. ‘Without every one of them, our Repair Café would not have been such a great success. Thanks also to all our very supportive visitors, many of whom are now regulars.

The Repair Café has had nearly 3,000 visitors since it first opened its doors in November 2021 and more than 2,300 repairs have been completed. Crucially, this means that all these items have been prevented from going to landfill and furthermore, energy and resources have been saved in avoiding the need for replacements to be manufactured.

Many treasured items are also being restored. Last month, 94-year-old Nelly brought in her Carrom board (pictured), and skilled repairers Marta and Paul are working together to restore it for her.

“The Repair Café is so well run and offers such a fantastic local service,” said visitor Simon Drane. ‘I was so pleased that Nick was able to fix our statue. It’s great to see the community pull together in this way, reducing waste and offering items a new lease of life.”

As well as welcoming several local community projects to the Repair Café, collection points have been set up for recycling used candle wax and batteries.

In November, donations of green electric circuit boards are being collected so that children in the Kids Room can make the word ‘Computer’ from them. Please bring along any printed circuit boards that you no longer need or contact lindfieldrepaircafe@gmail.com.

Lindfield Repair Café volunteers also offer computer advice and can help with many technical issues. Lindfield Repair Café is held at Lindfield United Reformed Church, between 10am-1pm. Forthcoming events: Saturday 2nd November, Saturday 7th December, and Saturday 4th January.

Third Lindfield Repair Café success!

The third Lindfield Repair Café took place at Lindfield United Reformed Church on Saturday 5th February after a necessary break in January for Covid safety reasons. Once again, the turnout was remarkable with well over 100 visitors, 87 repairs completed on the day and a further 15 taken away for repair. A huge range of items were fixed including a toy plane, a vacuum cleaner and three clocks. Garden tools and knives were sharpened, and items of clothing and jewellery given a new lease of life.

This month the Repair Café welcomed Computers for Kids, a local charity, and more than 40 computers, monitors, keyboards, printers were collected and donated. At the ‘Kids’ Table’ computers were taken apart, a valuable way to learn how they work, and one young man took the opportunity to learn for his forthcoming GCSE.

Trevor Carpenter, who is responsible for getting the café off the ground, was delighted to welcome Councillor Howard Mundin, the Mayor of Haywards Heath, on an official visit. The Mayor was very impressed with the turnout and what is being achieved. “It was truly wonderful to see the skills of the volunteers at the Repair Café and to witness the buzz of fun and friendship enjoyed by everyone taking part,” he said. “Not only do Trevor and his volunteers repair your goods, but they are happy to share their knowledge and they even have a special kids’ table encouraging young people to repair their toys and games.”

Visitors came from surrounding towns and villages and amongst them were people hoping to set up Repair Cafés in their own local area – one from Cuckfield and one from London.

As always, none of this would have been possible without the hard work and dedication of a team of 60 volunteers and the organisers would like to express their heartfelt thanks. They are always keen to hear from anyone who would like to join them. They would also like to thank everyone who came along with items for repair.

For the next event, to be held on Saturday 5th March, the organisers plan to hold a ‘weaving loom workshop’ for kids, with the chance to make a gift for Mother’s Day. They would love to hear from anyone who has any experience, or time, to make some basic wooden peg blocks, or looms, as well as anyone with some experience to help run the event. Spare wool, ribbon or all material that can be cut into strips would also be very welcome. Contact: lindfieldrepaircafe@gmail.com

https://www.lindfieldrepaircafe.org/

There is a collection point for Haywards Heath Food Bank at the venue so visitors may drop off donations when they visit. Lindfield Repair Café is open on the first Saturday of every month at the United Reformed Church, Lindfield from 10am to 1pm. (On bank holiday weekends the date will move to the second Saturday of the month.)

Please note that the Repair Café cannot guarantee that they will be able to repair all items brought in, but they will always have a go if possible!