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.
- February (Haregate) - 29 items
- March (Foxlowe) -39 items
- April (Haregate) - 15 items
- May (Upper Tean) -10 items
- June (Foxlowe) -23 items
- July (Butterton) - 37 items
As you can see from the statistics below, we fix two-thirds of items on the day, with another 13% needing a replacement part. Just one in five is beyond repair.
We do see a lot of vacuum cleaners! Last year we seemed inundated with food mixers, but none so far this year.
Our repair team love a challenge and our last session at Butterton was very busy with a wide range of items from Kindles, to lawmowers, trousers and camera cases.
The team enjoyed the fine weather and beautiful setting of the Village Hall to have our annual BBQ with the amazing Bill the BBQ providing the necessary cooking facilities.
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.
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.