News from the Repair Café

Hungerford Repair Café January 18^th 2025

 Hungerford Repair Café held its first event for 2025 in the Croft Hall last Saturday morning. We undertook over 70 repairs on the morning in question – a testament to the fact that this event is growing in popularity. Fortunately, we also had an extraordinary turnout of 26 volunteers manning the café and repair tables; covering all kinds of household items that our public bring to us for help. One happy visitor said “Absolutely fantastic! Such enthusiasm from the repair team. Ian was my magician today”.

 One item brought in was a 1940s gilded table lamp that had first been brought to us in November. The lamp had been in the family for many years but had stopped working. At that time, we had to inform the owner that the wiring was unsafe and that the lamp should not be used. It was decided then that a restoration was in order and our volunteer Chris dismantled the lamp so that its owner could take the parts home to work on. Meanwhile, a new braided cable was ordered to renew the wiring. The owner, having restored the individual parts of the lamp brought it back last Saturday for Chris to reassemble and install the new cable. As you can see in the photograph, both Chris and the owner were very pleased with the result. The owner said “Simply amazing. I have an ancient lamp that works again”.

 This is a great example of a collaborative repair. By bringing in your broken item, we may be able to work together to give your item a new lease of life. In some cases, two or more volunteers might collaborate to bring different skills to bear on a complex problem.

 We’ll be holding more events in 2025. Our schedule is to hold an event on the 3^rd Saturday of every other month. Our next Hungerford Repair Café event will be held in the Croft Hall in Hungerford from 10:00 am to 12:30 pm on Saturday March 15^{th 2025}