Newbury & Thatcham Repair Cafes run monthly on Sunday afternoons in Newbury, and Sunday mornings in Thatcham. Please see here for upcoming dates. Thanks to all your support in 2024, we saved over 1,350 kg of items from waste-processing, with lots of fun (and hard work too!) in the process. For more details, please contact newburythatchamrepaircafe@gmail.com
January 2025
Newbury MP Lee Dillon visited the Newbury and Thatcham Repair Café on Sunday 26 January
Newbury and Thatcham Repair Café volunteers were delighted to welcome Newbury MP Lee Dillon to a very busy event on Sunday 26 January to learn about the Repair Café, meet its volunteers, and to see how valuable their time and expertise are to the local community.
Mr. Dillon says “It was great to see the incredible skills and dedication of the Newbury and Thatcham Repair Café team. A well-run, popular service that saves people money, reduces waste, and shows how much can be repaired instead of thrown away. Thank you to the fantastic team at the Newbury and Thatcham Repair Café for the warm welcome and the brilliant work you do.”
Over 80 items were brought in for repair, ranging from vacuum cleaners and toasters to clothing and ornaments. One of these was a saxophone-playing musical Santa which was successfully repaired and whose owner commented, “So pleased to have this repaired. It’s my dad’s favourite Christmas ornament. He’s a lifelong saxophone player.” Such feedback is much appreciated by the volunteer repairers.
Newbury and Thatcham Repair Café is also delighted to secured a grant from the Electrical Safety Fund to ensure electrical safety is paramount at our events. The grant has funded a training course for some of our volunteers in Portable Appliance Testing (PAT) to increase the number of volunteers who can PAT test to improve efficiency and availability of PAT testing at the event, plus to update the capabilities of the current PAT volunteers.
All mains-powered items brought into the Repair Café need PAT testing to ensure that our volunteers are safe whilst repairing (and the venue too). PAT testing is also required after a repair is complete, so that the owner and their property are safe whilst using the item after the event. Training more volunteers also means that volunteers overall become more aware of the need for PAT testing items, and electrical safety in general.
The Electricity Safety Fund is an annual grant scheme run by the charity Electrical Safety First which is committed to reducing deaths, injuries and damage caused by electricity. Newbury and Thatcham Repair Café are very grateful to have received the support of Electrical Safety First.
October 2024
The Mayor of Newbury, Cllr. Andy Moore, visited Newbury and Thatcham Repair Café to help celebrate 15 years of the Repair Café movement world-wide this October.
After opening the event, the Mayor and Mayoress chatted to the visitors and the skilled volunteers. It’s not only visitors who leave smiling after coming to the event, but also the volunteers. As one volunteer said at the end of the event, they love ‘the opportunity for another fun afternoon of problem-solving and mending… and the great company’. So it’s a win-win for both the visitors and volunteers!
Once again, there was a wide variety of items brought in for repair including an 83-year old teddy bear to be carefully patched up and duvet covers to be mended. The very busy electrical and electronic repairers rose to the challenge of mending, amongst other items, toasters, kettles, vacuum cleaners, shredders, a lawn mower and a strimmer. General repairs included knives and shears being sharpened, and a litter-picker repair was completed.
The next Newbury and Thatcham Repair Café event is on Sunday 1 December from 10am to 12.30pm (last items to be checked in by 12 noon) at Frank Hutchings Community Hall, Thatcham.
September 2024
A peacock, a rabbit, and two teddy bears visited the Newbury and Thatcham Repair Café in Thatcham on Sunday 29 September. They were amongst the 76 items brought in for repair by talented volunteers.
The peacock arrived wingless, the bunny and one teddy bear had internal issues with their battery mechanisms and the vintage teddy bear only had one functioning arm. We fixed the first three items at the Repair Cafe, and the vintage teddy bear is currently undergoing an arm reattachment. It was lovely to see families bringing in the bunny music box and the child’s light-up teddy and watching the repairs – maybe one day the young owners of the soft toys will be Repair Café volunteers!
Apart from the soft toys, there was a very eclectic mix of electrical and electronic items plus wooden items and a mobility rollator, the second one that has been fixed. Trousers and jumpers were mended and garden tools repaired and sharpened.
These repairs reflect the wide skillset of the volunteers and how determined the volunteers are to revive cherished and everyday items.
During the eight events so far this year, nearly 1,000kg (1 tonne) of items have been prevented from going to waste-processing or landfill. The Repair Café is very happy it can provide this service for the community.
The next event is in Newbury Methodist Church Hall on Sunday 27 October at 2pm.
May 2024
Antique phonograph, rescued from the Great Flood at Canvey Island in 1953, is ‘rescued’ again at the Newbury and Thatcham Repair Café
An 1896 cylindrical phonograph was brought along to the Repair Cafe by local resident Peter on Sunday 28 April 2024 for a replacement drive belt. The phonograph was originally purchased by Peter’s grandfather during the early 1900s when he was courting his wife-to-be. The pair set up home on Canvey Island, a very low-lying area of Essex.
On the night of January 31, 1953, a storm surged in the North Sea, caused by a very high spring tide and unusual weather conditions. Many villages and towns on the UK’s east coast were engulfed in water. On Canvey Island the storm overwhelmed the sea wall and flooded the island. Sadly 58 people on Canvey Island lost their lives but Peter’s grandparents manage to survive 12 hours in freezing cold water before being rescued by boat. Afterwards they moved to other accommodation.
When the floods subsided several weeks later, Peter’s father and other relatives returned to the home to salvage as much as possible, and the phonograph was found, completely covered in mud. Peter, then aged 15 years, cleaned the phonograph and got it working again, and his grandfather then gave it to him – a treasured family heirloom. Peter even created a new coiled metal drive belt to replace the original one – he loved the phonograph.
At the Repair Café on Sunday, a volunteer investigated why the phonograph wasn’t working any more, and diagnosed a loose ‘flywheel’ which he tightened up. The drive belt Peter had made back in 1953 still worked!
The sound of the phonograph playing again was heard throughout the Café! Peter is delighted. Now it’s been repaired it will be given to his daughter. It will have been in the family for five generations, thanks to the care Peter has given it since he was a teenager and the skill of our volunteer.
Our monthly repair cafes run on Sunday afternoons in Newbury, and Sunday mornings in Thatcham. Please see here for upcoming dates.
Hazel
Newbury & Thatcham Repair Cafe
newburythatchamrepaircafe@gmail.com
