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.
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 15th 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!
MCA had a great day at Biddulph Moor CORE's amazing Apple Day, where all things appley were celebrated.
Not just a stall pressing apples into juice from us, but also children's activities around greenhouse gases and a Repair Cafe stall focussing on bikes.
We gave them a challenge with this one but it seems to have failed its MOT test.
Looking forward to seeing what turns up at the next regular Repair Cafe.
Word cloud generated from ‘3 little words’ provided by Repair Cafe volunteers explaining what Repair Café means to them.
If you’d like a summary of what the Repair Cafes have been achieving during the past year, here’s their annual report. It seems amazing that it was only recently launched, as it’s become such an important part of our lives. Find out all the lowdown on numbers and types of repairs and get a sneak preview of plans for expansion.
The next Repair Café will be at the Foxlowe on Saturday 20 May.
Our Repair Cafes are going from strength to strength, with increasing numbers of visitors and more and more skilled repairers. We are hugely grateful to them all.
However, we’re still looking for people to help with our social media, video and publicity - can you spare a couple of hours a month? We’d like to make 2023 an even greater year of growth, as there certainly is a need for our services. If you can help you would be made very welcome in our friendly group.
The totals for our 4 Repair Cafes from August to November have now been confirmed....
After a couple of pilot events at Haregate Community Centre and the Foxlowe Arts Centre, we're delighted to report that the Repair Cafe programme is now up and running, with quite a few happy punters taking away beautifully mended objects. These range from mended clothes to a clothes line pole to televisions. Repairs aren't always possible but we can refer owners to professional repairers in the area. The television shown here couldn't be mended but one of our volunteers gave the young couple her recently replaced TV - an example of true community spirit.
These events run once a month, alternating between the two venues.