Farnham Repair Cafe has celebrated its 10th anniversary this month. Held on the second Saturday of each month at The Spire Church, the cafe has been helping residents repair electronics, appliances, textiles, and treasured personal items since its official launch in 2014. Over the past decade, its volunteers have restored more than 2,800 items, preventing waste and fostering a culture of reuse. Founder and chairman Martin Charter said he and the team aimed to continue their work, strengthening community ties and promoting sustainability for years to come.
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NewsTranscript
00:00To celebrate the brilliant work of our volunteers and the engagement of the citizens of Barnham
00:10and the Town Council and other partners, and it was also fantastic to see our 6,000th visitor
00:18through today.
00:19So this is a technique called darning, which is a way to mend any knitted garments, like
00:39a jumper or socks or any of that kind of thing, and you're basically just, what we're doing,
00:45gently closing up a hole and then putting a bit more fabric in.
00:48So last month we had a lady bring in a dress that we think was from 1912, probably a bridesmaids
00:57dress, and she bought it in an auction and didn't realise that there was about an 8 inch
01:03slit where the fabric had split over the years.
01:07So we had a look at it and talked to her about what supplies we needed to do to fix it for
01:15her.
01:16So she's going to bring it in this month, it hasn't come just yet.
01:25We see a lot of food processors in particular, and often the problem isn't the motor of the
01:31processor at all, it's actually the safety mechanism that makes sure that you can't
01:36cut your hands in the same way as you can cut the vegetables that you're going to continue.
01:41So you always look at that first rather than think, oh the motor's faulty.
01:49I brought my Juliet toaster here today because it's the dial that you turn to set home when
01:57you want a toaster.
01:58I've been on a go slow and I thought it probably needed a new timer but I didn't know what
02:05it needed.
02:06So I came here today to the Repair Cafe and met my friend here, George.
02:14So this timer, we were able to take it apart.
02:18It's about 20 years old and they used to make them so that they could be, well you can take
02:25them apart, they're not supposed to be, I suppose.
02:28And inside was a clockwork mechanism and Chapter 4 has cleaned it and lubricated it and it's
02:40now working well.
02:42So I'm now going to hopefully install it back and hopefully the toaster will work again.
02:51It's amazing to be here once again at the Farm and Repair Cafe.
02:54It's the 10th anniversary today.
02:56They do an amazing job fixing stuff, which is really important in terms of the environmental
03:02benefits, but also it's a really sociable place to come.
03:05So congratulations on the 10th anniversary and look forward to another 10 years coming.
03:09So over the 10 years, we've now run about I think 105 sessions.
03:16We were even able to continue when we were able to throughout COVID, so we adapted our
03:23schedule.
03:24We still continue to work and we've had a wide variety of volunteers through the program
03:30over the years and are up towards getting towards 3,000 repairs, continuous 68% repair
03:41rate.
03:42So very positive.
03:45We're one of the longest running repair cafes in the country and recently we were awarded
03:51with the King's Award for Voluntary Service and at that stage I think we were the first
03:56repair cafe in the country to have received that.
03:59So it's great for Farnham and great for the community.