Betchworth Repair Café success!

Four vacuum cleaners, three toasters, two hi-fi systems and a sewing machine… just some of the mechanical and electrical items brought back to life at the Repair Café pop-up in Betchworth village hall on 15 March, James Benn reports. 
 

A long-loved Teddy got his smile back, quite a bit of darning got done, some of the infant school’s play kit was repaired and (by now) a pair of designer sunglasses are back gracing the owner’s face too. All this thanks to the support of the repair team volunteers who operate under the Circular Dorking umbrella, staffing a Repair Café at the Christian Centre by St Martins, Dorking on the first Saturday of every month. 

Betchworth resident Martin Ferrett is one of their regular electrical repair specialists; through him we met their Café founder and organiser Jacqui Hamlin, who persuaded the Dorking team to come and run this trial event in Betchworth. 
 
It was a busy, buzzy morning. Inevitably, we couldn't solve every customers' repair problems. Some items needed replacement parts that are no longer available, and other kit was designed on the dreaded built-in obsolescence principle, so was found to be irreparable. Nevertheless 28 items were repaired and can be added to the global ‘fixed, not binned’ count maintained by Repair Café movement's founders in the Netherlands, and another six may yet be saved. 



To work well, the received wisdom is that Repair Cafés need to be held very regularly, and frequently enough for locals to feel they can get a faulty item checked quickly enough to delay buying an immediate replacement.  
 
The Dorking crew would love Re-Betchworth to host a monthly Café too, mid-month, so that any broken item can be checked either here or there within two weeks. To do that we’d need an expanded team of volunteers, with practical common sense being as important as professional skill sets. Come and join us!

If you feel you might be able to help, at any level, we'd love to hear from you. Please get in touch with me, James benn, at rebetchworth@gmail.com.