Our Repair Cafe update in five snippets, who we (TTK) are and what we do, about the Repair
Cafe Kingston project, what funding has done for TTK/RCK, how the RCK is going and what
we are planning, examples of people that RCK has helped, including some data.
Who we are: TTK. Transition Town Kingston (TTK) is a community group helping to raise awareness
of the climate crisis and encourage transition to a resilient and sustainable low carbon
future. To that end, we foster and support a range of practical and inclusive environmental
projects, we educate and campaign about the climate crisis, we encourage sustainable food
workshops.
About the project: RCK. Our Repair Cafe project, RCK, now entering its second year, aligns
well with TTK's core aims and ethos. The community faces several challenges that we can help
with. The energy, climate and cost of living crises, the need to reduce waste, lack of
know how and social isolation. The project mobilises community capacities and resources,
builds relationships, trust and collaboration. In our first year, we have fixed items for
or advised diverse visitors on miscellaneous items, including clothing, a record player,
hair dryers, toasters, rice cookers and favourite toys. The Repair Cafe ethos includes skill
sharing and confidence building by watching and learning, contributing to users capabilities
and resilience as well as saving them money and keeping repairable items out of the waste
system. Our volunteers of all ages share their experience, expertise and skills and seem
to enjoy the purposeful activity and engagement with visitors and each other. The social aspects
of Repair Cafe, we offer refreshments, enhance the wellbeing of all participants.
The Council's Resilience Fund has enabled us to secure our future, to improve safe working
practices in our Repair Cafe project and to continue encouraging and empowering the community
to reuse and repair. Funding is being spent on training, specialist insurance cover, further
volunteers and visitors, substantial extension leads, reusable cups to cut down on our waste
and a second hand settle to enable cashless donations towards the project's ongoing costs
and self-sufficiency. And also to make contributions towards the overheads of our parent group,
the TTK, ensuring its resilience too. How it is going and plans. We think that things
are going pretty well. We have recruited a skilful and versatile team of about 30 volunteer
fixers. Diverse members of the local community have brought in a wide range of items for
We can't easily expand in the space we have in Kingston Library but we would happily advise
and support others in the borough who wanted to set up something similar or complementary.
We have already had several visitors from neighbouring groups or researchers or students
observing how we do things. Sharing advice and information is a positive aspect of Repair
Cafes generally. Plans include more flyers, posters to maintain visitor numbers, succession
planning to maintain enough organisers and volunteers, helping the library by paying
for more PowerPoints. Examples of help from RCK. On a typical repair
morning, March 2024, we repaired sewing machine, pyjama, dog toy, rucksack backpack, two bags,
blocked trimmer, two lamps, jacket cuffs, paddleboard bag, radio, advice given, dehydrator,
computer, umbrella, laptop, not repaired, irreparable, clock, lamp toggle switch, two
vacuum cleaners, food mixer, leather jacket. We typically see around 25 items each session
repair or advice, not repaired. In part we (organisers, volunteers, visitors) are there
for the social element and the company too. One of our volunteers.
Gillian: I enjoy the fixing, the community aspect, the social aspect. I'm learning from the others
Gillian: and I'm helping people fix their own things. With spoken contributions from Hilary: Hilary, Marilyn: Marilyn,
Gillian: Gillian and Damon: Damon.