The group started as the seed of an idea in the mind of our Chairman John Fitzgerald. John was inspired by the BBC television programme The Repair Shop and is a talented carpenter and handy man who often lends his skills to his local community.
John felt more motivated than ever to make his dream a reality following the Covid pandemic and seeing the isolation and financial pressure people suffered in its wake. He had a vision to create a community event that could help bring people together, save people money (with free volunteer-led repairs) and help prevent waste.
Having young grandchildren, John feels strongly that we need to move toward a more sustainable way of living to protect and preserve the environment for future generations.
John was enjoying a coffee with wife Lin at the Mountsorrel Memorial Centre (MMC Venue) Café one day and had a lightbulb moment – that this would be the perfect space for a community repair cafe. Thankfully the MMC jumped at the chance and offered us the space for free. We held our first repair Café in October 2023 and have never looked back.
The reaction to the group has been phenomenal. We now have over 30 volunteers on the books and a fully-fledged committee (also unpaid volunteers) that look after the business end of operations.
We regularly welcome between 50-70 ‘customers’ to our free repair cafes at the MMC venue and average around 18 volunteers at each session. Over the last year and a half, we have successfully fixed hundreds of items and our volunteers have given well over a thousand hours of their time to their community.
We have fixed items of great sentimental value including a World War II medal which we remounted, a barometer which was the only keepsake a lady had of her beloved late grandad and a binoculars case that had belonged to a WW2 pilot. We’ve also had some really fun and unusual items like a hot tub, a bikini clad duck, a one-armed bandit and a bingo number generator from a local care home.
We are so proud of our Net Zero Hero accolade and have been shouting it from the roof tops, we proudly display our badge on all emails.
It’s been a great way to raise awareness of our free service and feels good to be able to shine a spotlight on the amazing work our volunteers do.
The campaign is a great way of showcasing ways in which our local community can get involved with environmental initiatives and hopefully sharing our story will inspire others to create their own groups.
Buying less and reusing more is an essential part of moving towards Net Zero. It decreases demand for raw materials and energy and it saves money. Sometimes repair can seem impossible because of lack of access to spare parts, lack of repair documentation and tools and product design increasingly making disassembly more difficult. That is why we have lent our support to the ‘Right to Repair’ campaign, aimed at introducing legislation to force manufacturers of certain products to make them easier and cheaper to repair, by signing the Repair and Reuse Declaration.
Read more about our Net Zero Heroes.