of landfill in Birmingham each year
bicycles are thrown away in the UK each year
of people would like to know how to repair their broken things
Our next repair Cafe will be on 13th June at the Mildland Arts Centre from 11am to 2pm.
We have repairers booked who can help with electrict, electronic and mechanical household items and also textile repairs
Future Balsall Heath Repair Cafes will be on 11th July, 12th September and 8th November at the Old Print Works in Balsall Heath
A repair cafe is a group of community skilled menders, who can help you repair small household items/ textiles and furnishings that may have otherwise had ended up in landfill because they are not viable to take to professional repairers
Sometimes the mender will guide you on skills, techniques and tools to show you how you can mend your item – for example, the webbing on an old chair/recovering an old chair seat/mending a hole in a clothing item/mending problems with your bicycle.e in a clothing item/mending problems with your bicycle. At other mender ‘stations’ the mender will repair the item if possible – this might be the sharpening of old kitchen implements and scissors/a simple bike repair/small electrical items (when this can be done in an electrically safe way)/jewellery repair/a small rip in a piece of upholstery. Please make sure to read and understand the disclaimer page before you agree to have your item fixed.
We want the repairs to be available to anybody, regardless of their financial status. So all repairs are carried out on a voluntary donation basis. All menders time is provided on a voluntary and unpaid basis. Some of our menders also professionally repair/make/mend larger items – the Repair Cafe would not be able to replace these professional services. Neither are menders going to say that you need to use their professional service for larger repairs. If your repair is outside of the scope of the Repair Cafe, the mender will advise you that a professional repair needs to be done – but will not specify that you need to use their professional service. If the repair requires a ‘part’ to complete, we will just ask you to cover the cost of the ‘part’. This might mean that you will bring an item that needs a part to be bought before the repair can be done, and you can then buy the part and bring it back next month. Any money received from donations will be used just to cover the running costs and insurance for the Repair Cafe – any surplus would be donated onto to local community projects.
The week before the Repair Cafe we will advertise on our social media the range of repair skills that will be available that month. Repairs will be offered on a first-come, first served basis.
Amazing! if you contact us either by our facebook page – facebook.com/BalsallHeathRepairCafe or email us BalsallHeathRepairCafe@gmail.com we will get back in touch with you