The Repair Cafe

Members of the Rotary Clubs in Godalming have recently established a Rotary led repair cafe and on Saturday 22 October it was formally opened by the Town Mayor, councillor Shirley Faraday.  The Cafe now has around 30 volunteers with a wide range of skills and many were present for the group photo with the Mayor. (Photo – Phil Kemp)

The idea for a repair cafe emerged at the start of 2022 and after visits to similar cafes in Haslemere and Farnham, from whom we received much enthusiastic support, we decided to try to establish one in Godalming.

Repair cafes exist to bring people with broken household items together with people who volunteer to help them fix the items, all at no cost and in a friendly environment. Everything is done voluntarily, including the provision of tea, coffee and cake, although the cafe does accept donations to help cover costs.

Repair cafes started in Amsterdam in 2010 and there are now around 2,500 worldwide, mostly in Europe. As far as we know, this is the first Rotary led cafe and we are keen that other Rotary clubs should consider starting a cafe in their town, if one does not exist already. It is a great way to show that Rotary cares about the community and the environment, and cares about helping people to keep their household items working. This saves the owners the expense of a new purchase and saves the planet the costs of energy, materials and recycling or landfill.