How opening a Repair Café benefits the community

“75 to 80% of what we repair are small electrical items, such as toasters or kettles, vacuum cleaners. Our team at the Meon Valley Repair Cafe is talented and very collaborative,” explains Mark ‘Tizz’ Tizzard, the Intergenerational Mission Enabler of the Southampton Methodist District.

Having begun in Amsterdam in 2009, the Repair Cafe movement has thrived and there are now 385 Repair Cafes in Great Britain, including the one in Waltham Chase. The idea is to repair broken items instead of buying new ones. People are encouraged to bring their items in and the volunteers will repair them.

However, donations are always appreciated to help cover the costs of the room.

The story started in 2019 when Waltham Chase Methodist Church celebrated its 150th anniversary with a weekend-long series of events that brought over a thousand people to the church. The congregation then wondered how they could connect more with men from the local community.

“We received an email saying that the county council were looking to fund repair cafes and that churches could apply for the funding, which is not always the case with financial support,” says Tizz.

They received the funding in 2020 but the pandemic put the project on hold. When the COVID restrictions started changing in the summer of 2021, Waltham Chase advertised to find volunteers.

“From there, the team grew bigger and, in February 2022, the Meon Valley Repair Cafe was officially launched. It was amazing and the local MP and the chair of Hampshire County Council both came,” adds Tizz.

There are now more than 12 volunteers meeting one Saturday each month. They repair small electrical items, offer PAT testing, provide stitching and fabric repair, and have a café with beverages, sandwiches and cakes for people waiting.

In 2022, the Meon Valley Repair Café became a valued service in Waltham Chase and was short-listed by BBC Radio Solent for their Make a Difference Award. They did not win but were awarded a Commendation in the Environmental category.

The Repair Cafe movement has sustainability at heart and it translated for the Meon Valley Repair Café in active collaboration with the Hampshire County Council Repair Cafe Network to identify those products that were not designed to be repaired.

Sustainable and community builders, Repair Cafés can also be life-affirming for the repairers who are either semi-retired or retired, allowing them to use their skills.