We were delighted to learn that our Repair Cafe had been successful in applying for funding from the North Staffordshire Environment fund, managed by  the Community Foundation for Staffordshire & Shropshire, to help us provide hands-on electrical safety training to our Repair Cafe team.

Our electrical repair team have previously undertaken individual Portable Appliance Testing training online, but the team wanted to get some more detailed training from a recognised electrical training provider, so that they were all working to a common standard and had practical experience of potential hazard we might find in the items brought into our Repair Cafes.

Thanks to this funding, we are now able to book training with local provider Rebus Training, based in Tunstall.

We are looking to work with our colleagues Social Connective CIC based in Biddulph, and MCA will sponsor a free place for a local young person looking to pursue a career in electrical work.

Link to grant details - https://staffordshire.foundation/grants/staffordshire-organisations/north-staffordshire-environment-fund/

My journey to becoming a Repair Café Volunteer started with an accidental conversation and I haven’t regretted a bit of it since. The Repair Café has given me what I was looking for – the opportunity to volunteer with a local organisation, meet new people and give something back to the community. Whilst attending an event at the Foxlowe, I got chatting to a lady sat next to me about an advertisement in the programme for the Leek Repair Cafe. By coincidence, she also volunteered there, and she explained what they do. It sounded just up my street; I attended the first Repair Cafe and fell in love with the idea that I could use my electronic and electrical repair skills again. So much so, that I also began volunteering with Biddulph Repair Cafe as well.

I specialise in electrical and electronic equipment repair, typically handling items such as domestic small white goods, hi-fi equipment, garden tools, domestic lighting and all manner of things in between. I particularly enjoy repairing vintage hi-fi equipment. I guess I’ve got form on this. From a very early age, I was fascinated by the way the world worked and would be constantly taking electrical and electronic items apart to examine them. I would read the Radio Spares electronics catalogues at bedtime when most other children were reading the Famous Five books. I studied electrical engineering and electronics at the University of Liverpool, moved into mobile phone manufacturing, then IT infrastructure and now IT architecture design.

Visualising the world and how machines work – and using that image to problem-solve is intensely satisfying. Unfortunately, many manufacturers now make it very difficult to repair their items, so some that come in to us are always going to be a challenge; either because service manuals are not available or the equipment relies on understanding the software that runs it. Printers, for example, are generally very challenging. However, many of the repairs I carry out are actually quite straightforward, such as replacing a fuse, a flexible cable, fitting a new plug, or re-soldering a broken wire. Without these simple fixes the item would be destined for the scrapheap, but for many manufacturers, it's often uneconomical for them to do the repair themselves; the repair cafés fill that gap and quickly breathe new life into many items.

Read more: Being a Repair Café Volunteer – Simon Rose

The team at Moorlands Repair Cafe have been busy this year, with monthly visits to towns and villages across the Moorlands. We are keen to spread the word and encourage residents to have access to our services.

Our Repair Café team have been busy this year again and are looking forward to visiting new locations in the Moorlands this summer as we look to widen our reach to cover the entire Moorlands, working with our partners at Social Connective CIC in Biddulph.  We are always looking for new volunteers to join us as repairers, part of the reception team or to help with publicity.

Upcoming events

• 21 June at Foxlowe Arts Centre, Leek
• 12 July at Village Hall, Butterton
• 23 August at Sandy Lane Centre, Brown Edge
• 27 September at Foxlowe Arts Centre, Leek
• 18 October at Haregate Community Centre, Leek
• 15 November at Foxlowe Arts Centre, Leek

We are also excited to be part of the Chain Reaction project which is a joint scheme to promote access to cycling in the Moorlands. Working with a range of partners, our Repair Café team helped get 30 bikes checked over, repaired and handed over to the good people of Biddulph. It was all part of a fun day in April that saw Outside bring in the amazing Bicycle Ballet to the town, putting a smile on everyone’s face. You can watch highlights of the event here.

We are now looking to save more bikes from the scrap heap, and support schemes in Cheadle & Biddulph to give people the skills and confidence to take up cycling.

We were very pleased to be invited to join selected Repair Cafes from around the country in an event being held in the House of Lords next month. One of our repairers, John, will be meeting MPs and representatives from Restart to showcase the great week that local groups like Moorlands Repair Café do in our communities. We have written to our two MPS and urged them to attend – you can ask them too here.

Be among the happy users at our regular Repair Cafes. We have confirmed dates and venues for Repair Cafes up to May 2025, with more in planning. This year, we will make our first visit to Upper Tean and we are also hoping to get over to Butterton and Brown Edge, in addition to our regular attendance at Haregate Community Centre and Foxlowe Arts Centre.
We will also have the very popular 'Rescue Me' stall with us at the Foxlowe in March.

• 15 February - Haregate Community Centre, Leek
• 22 March - Foxlowe Arts Centre, Leek
• 26 April - Haregate Community Centre
• 17 May - Great Wood Community Hall, Upper Tean

Doors open at 10.00am and we ask that people bring in items before 1.30pm so we can look to finish by 2.00pm. Everyone welcome to stop by and see what we do. New volunteers are always welcome.

See Our Facebook Page

Last October, our Repair Café joined in the international birthday celebrations for the Repair Café movement. It was great that our Haregate event took place almost to the day of the movement’s 15^th birthday. The world’s first repair café was held by Dutch journalist Martine Postma in the Hague on 18 October, 2009. Since then, the movement has spread around the world.

The Moorlands Repair Café came a bit later, being launched on 5 March, 2022 but, to be fair, MCA had only been going for less than three years. Since then, it has gone from strength to strength and this summer went on tour with events in Cheadle and Warslow.

At our most recent Repair Café at the Foxlowe this November, the team were joined by filmmakers from Staffs County Council to record a short video and also by Gemma from Waste Savvy Staffordshire, who launched the Rescue Me project. This was their first pop up stall, where there was a huge range of toys, baby items, books, pictures, mirrors and bric-a-brac, all rescued from the household recycling centre. These were available for donations, which all went straight to Leek Food Bank.

The Repair Café has been the brainchild of our coordinator, Mike Jones (pictured here with grandson, Alfie), aided by a dedicated team of expert repairers and admin volunteers. He’s now busy organising new venues for next year, in addition to our regular Foxlowe and Haregate ones. Watch this space and their Facebook page!