Repair Café volunteer - Fixing/ repairs to electrical or mechanical items, furniture, textiles or IT

Bexley residents are invited to get small household appliances repaired for free while they enjoy a cup of tea or coffee.

The Repair Cafe, which takes place at Sporting Club Thamesmead, will help local people to save money by giving old appliances a new lease of life. Experienced repair professionals will be on hand to work on small electrical items, including kettles, toasters, vacuum cleaners, games consoles, air fryers, blenders and lamps. We also aim to provide other fixing services covering but not limited to; clothing; small items of furniture; upcycling; computers and toys.

After handing over their broken items, visitors to the Repair Cafe will be able to get refreshments while they wait. The cafe is being organised by Peabody and funded by Lovell, in partnership with repair and reuse social enterprise The Restart Project. The London Borough of Bexley and Cory are also key partners in this role, encouraging waste minimisation.

During February to March social enterprise, Kundakala, will also be on hand to carry out repairs. It offers a free sewing alterations service to fix clothes on the spot.

We are looking for volunteers to help run this event from meet and greeters, tea/coffee servers to experienced fixers. Please see our other volunteer roles to find out more: Meet and Greet volunteers Refreshments volunteers.

What skills do I need?

As a repairer, you would need to be competent in fixing or attempting to mend items that are brought to the repair café within your area of expertise.

In a supportive environment, you would try to mend items. You will be given help by other experts and provided with access to detailed help sheets developed by the repair café network.

Your role is to try to help where possible, offer advice but not necessarily always be able to fix things. Eg. if the item is too expensive/complicated to repair, it might not be possible to do so and therefore it would need to be recycled. Or if it would take too long to fix, then you might suggest to the person how to fix it themselves or help them at another session.

Fixers may have many skills or focus on one area in particular. You do not have to have professional qualifications, but a good understanding and reasonable experience in mending or the willingness to learn is desirable.

There will be an opportunity to shadow experienced fixers at repair cafes in February, March and April for those who want to develop their confidence and skill set.  There will be a focus on skill sharing and team work- volunteers will work with members of the public to help them fix their own items and pick up new skills.

Where possible we will know in advance the types of items that residents will bring.

The aim is to try to fix where possible to the best of your ability to prevent items from going into the waste stream.

This event will be fully covered by public liability. If you have any concerns, please have a chat with us before making any decisions.

Free light refreshments will be provided.

Types of repairers required:

• Fixing small electrical items such as toasters, kettles, hair dryers
  
• Mending clothing
• Mending small table/chair legs
• Restoring/fixing furniture
• Upcycling/repurposing items
• Bike repairs
• Toy repairs
• Fixing IT equipment
• Advice on IT software

A rewarding experience – a key role on community focus where you can be passionate about helping at a community event that also benefits the environment and you will gain key experience on waste and recycling. You are welcome to bring your own fixing equipment/tools if you have any.

Once you have applied for this role a member of the repair café team will be in touch to have a chat about what you would like to do and answer any questions you may have. We will aim to contact you by email withing 7 days. You will then be invited to visit one of our repair cafes in February or March so that you can see what happens during the actual event.