A repair café is on its way to Bridgend, and they are looking for volunteers to help as they set up. In their simplest form, repair cafés are pop up events held on regular dates where the local community can get their broken household items repaired for free by volunteers.
Can you fix things? Bridgend Repair Café will need Fixers: People who have fixing skills e.g. electrical, wood working, IT/tech, bikes, jewellery, antiques and sewing. You don’t have to be an expert, just a competent fixer willing to get stuck in!
The types of things they fix include clothes, household electrics, technology, woodwork, children’s toys, furniture, and bikes. There are repair cafés across Wales including Llantrisant, Cowbridge and most recently Maesteg. Currently, there is no Repair Café in Bridgend.
The first event will kick off at Bryncethin Community Centre on Saturday 23rd April (10am to 12.30pm) and will repeat every 3rd Saturday of the month after that. Bridgend Repair café is currently identifying a venue near Bridgend town centre that will operate on the first Saturday of every month. The commitment is just 2.5 hours, once or twice a month.
As well as the vital fixers, volunteers are also needed to help run the cafés including “Meeters & Greeters” and Social Media Savvies.
Repair Café Wales pays for insurance, consumables (fuses, thread, wire etc), training, project management, tools and marketing. They rely on sponsorship, grants and visitor donations to meet all their costs. This enables them to prevent tons of household goods from going to recycling or landfill and helps less advantaged locals. It’s important to them that they don’t take custom from local businesses as the usual choice is to scrap things that don’t work.
As a repair café volunteer, you will get the opportunity to actively participate in the green recovery of your local area, whilst also becoming a valued member of a wider, pan-Wales team dedicated to nurturing a cleaner, more sustainable world, and providing inclusive, safe environments for people of all ages to share knowledge, skills, and to generally connect.
If you would like to volunteer for any of the above roles, or indeed in any capacity. Please register your interest by emailing Derek Hobbs on bridgendrepaircafe@gmail.com confirming what your area of expertise/interest is and he will then contact you to connect you with BRC.