Organise a free meeting place in your community to repair things instead of throwing them away.
"Welcome to the ChangeX Repair Café guide! We're delighted you're thinking about organising a Repair Café in your community. Here you’ll find all the information, practical tips and resources you need. There is someone to help you at each stage of the journey so don't be afraid to get in touch!" - Martine Postma, Founder of Repair Café
As a Repair Café local organiser you will need about 4 hours a week to get your Café up and running, a full day to run your first Café and then 2 hours a week to maintain the group and organise subsequent Cafés.
Register your Repair Café
The first step is to register your Repair Café with Repair Cafe HQ in Amsterdam and download your starter kit here. The starter kit contains incredibly practical information and all sorts of materials, tips and branding to assist in setting up your Repair Café. Registering also means your Repair Café will be added to a worldwide list of Repair Cafés. If you secure funding through ChangeX the kit cost will be covered but you can provide a donation at any time to help to support the international Repair Cafe Foundation to continue its work.
Form a team
The most successful Repair Cafés are a collaborative effort, plus, it's far more fun if you’ve got support and can share the workload! Find other interested people to help you and assign different roles to each person.
You will also need to recruit volunteer organisers for the day of the Repair Café to deal with logistics and spread good repair vibes!
Find local specialists
The next step is to find the right experts to lend a hand making repairs in your Repair Café! It's impossible to repair toys, printers, hair driers etc. without the people who know how to do it and have the tools with which to do it!
Start small - ask your neighbours, relatives or friends who have an interest in DIY to help. Just using your own network you can go a long way in manning all the basic stations in the Repair Café. We have lots of suggestions on how to find local experts in our Starter Kit.
Find a space
A key action in getting your Repair Café up and running is to find a venue. A place that is lowkey, easily accessible and in the heart of a residential area works best and be sure to allow enough space for tables, where various repair experts can sit with visitors to repair items.
Our network of Repair Cafes have some great examples of the community halls, church halls and other local spaces available for Repair Cafes across the world and are happy to share their experience of securing a venue, tables etc. As a member of the Repair Cafe Community you'll have easy access to this information so do please register with us as soon as possible.
Plan your first Repair Café
Now that you have everything ready, pick a date (weekends are best) and start planning your first event!
Then spread the word - use social media, local media, family, friends, chats at the school/pool/work - let people know the kind of repairs your Repair Cafe is able to do and the skills you need to do more.
Take loads of photos to share the great community stories from the day and remember to fuel your volunteers with good food and great coffee.
And then start planning your next one!
