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Are you interested in running a Repair Café in your area?

A repair café is a community initiative that bring together people with skills to repair and those who want items repaired. People are invited to bring their broken or damaged items for repair, and volunteers attempt to fix them.

It’s important to ensure that you have a clear plan in place as to how you will set up and maintain your Repair Café. You may choose to register with the Repair Café Foundation, which costs 49Euros (£41.77) as a one-off fee, although this fee is voluntary so if you don’t have any funds at all you can donate what you can. This is recommended and makes the process of setting up events and getting people to find you much easier. You can register here.

No repair café near you, but want to have a go at fixing something yourself? There are thousands of repair guides on the Repair Café network pages Repair guides – Repaircafe.

Please consider the following requirements before starting your Repair Café:

Location – you will need a suitable location with enough space to hold the Repair Café. It will need to have safe and suitable access, and have enough facilities. If you are running a café to serve hot drinks and cakes in the same space, you will need to ensure there are kitchen and toilet facilities, and any necessary food hygiene requirements in place. The most suitable locations very often will have these in place – so consider community spaces, youth clubs, churches or libraries. Remember that you may need to pay a fee to hire a venue so will need to factor this into costs. Holding the repair café in an existing popular setting (like a community market or event) is usually a good way to guarantee footfall, and they may already have a café there where people can purchase hot drinks and cakes while they wait for their repair to be carried out.
Insurance – you will require specialist insurance, to cover any injuries or damage. The insurance provider recommended by the Repair Café Network are E&G Insurance.
Volunteers – you will need to find volunteers who have the skills and experience to fix items. This can include, but is not limited to: clothing, toys, electricals, electronics, woodwork, bicycle maintenance, watch & jewellery repairs. Ensure that you have someone who can carry out PAT testing if you are going to fix electrical items. Possible places to find volunteers could be social media, community boards, local businesses and putting up notices in shops and community centres.
Health & Safety – you will need to have a suite of H&S documents including, but not limited to: risk assessments, safety guidelines, housekeeping/rules, risk disclaimers (for electricals), H&S policy. These don’t need to be very detailed but need to cover all the potential hazards and safety measures. You will need to ensure that all your volunteers are aware of the risks – copies of safety documentation should be shown and/or provided to volunteers when they commence ‘working’ at the repair café.
Advertising – think about how you will advertise the repair café. Social media is cheap and easy way to get the message out there. Leaflets and posters can be printed for a small cost and can be advertised in libraries and businesses, as well as on community boards. You could consider purchasing a large banner or outdoor sign which is a good way to reach people.

Libby Watts (Yatton Repair Café Co-Ordinator)

31 March 2023

North Somerset Repair Cafés (& other volunteer led repair services) run in the following locations:

Backwell Repair Café

Bournville Repair Café (Weston)

Clevedon Repair Café

Christ Church Repair Café (Weston)

Kewstoke Repair Café (Weston)

Locking Castle Church Repair Café (Worle)

Nailsea Shedders

Pill Repair Café

Portishead Repair Café (currently not running)