Carhampton holds its First Repair Café

On Sat 13th May in Carhampton Village hall, we held the repair café and it was a great success.

There were a whole range of repairs from a punctured wheelbarrow wheel to a broken teapot, a much loved record player to a treasured rucksack. There were also lots of articles to be sharpened.

“The majority of things we could and did repair and people went away very happy with the results” said Emily Feldberg , organiser of the event, “Where we couldn’t repair them we recommended a local professional.

So what is a Repair Café?

The public, bring broken articles that need small repairs to a Repair Café and volunteer repairers mends them if they can. Repairers available this time were sewers, mechanical, electrical and general. There was also an onsite PAT tester since every electrical repair has to be PAT tested before it is returned.

People attending are asked to give a donation to help cover the cost of insurance (this time our years insurance was donated to us by Trustees from Porlock Café) and hiring the hall (this time paid for by the Parish Council) but all the repairers (often professionals, retired or working ) are volunteers. Whilst attendees wait for their turn there is the opportunity to buy a tea/coffee for £1 and gorgeous homemade cake which is very reasonably priced at £1 a slice. Hence the Café!

Some people just come for the tea, cake and chance to natter, which is great, a real community event in the making Carhampton plans to have a café twice a year so the next Carhampton Repair Café is planned for Nov 11th in the Village Hall. Much sooner is Porlock Repair café (who have been most supportive of Carhampton) on 10th June in Porlock Village Hall.