Published on Friday, 28 February 2025 at 3:45:04 PM
As the Shire, in conjunction with Transition Bridgetown, prepares to launch its Repair Cafe next weekend with support from the Waste Authority - you might be left wondering what that actually is?
So what is a Repair Café?
A Repair Café is a community event where people bring their broken items for skilled volunteers to fix, helping to extend their lifespan and reduce waste.
What Can Be Repaired?
Based on the skills of our amazing volunteers, you can bring:
- Clothing – Minor repairs such as fixing tears, holes, buttons, restitching, and darning. (Excludes zips and alterations.)
- Small household items – Simple repairs or gluing for small furniture, toys, crockery, sculptures, shoes, and leather bags.
Repairs will typically take 15–20 minutes so we can assist as many people as possible. You’re welcome to bring multiple items, but we’ll work on one at a time before placing the next item in the queue. If it’s quiet, you may get several items repaired; if it’s busy, we may only have time for one.
- Please ensure your items are small enough to carry easily.
- We are unable to repair bicycles or low-voltage electrical items at this event due to a lack of available expertise. If you or someone you know has these skills, we’d love to have you volunteer for our next event in May! Volunteer forms will be available on the day.
What to Expect
Upon arrival, we’ll check in your items. While you wait, feel free to grab a cup of tea or coffee and a snack from the kitchen area.
When a repairer is ready, you’ll be invited to sit with them as they work on your item—this is a great chance to learn new skills and meet others! We won’t accept drop-off repairs; part of the experience is about connection.
Since this is our first event, it will be a bit of an experiment! We expect it to evolve over time and hope our community embraces it.
Is There a Cost?
The event is completely free thanks to funding from the Waste Authority and the Shire in partnership with Transition Bridgetown. We also deeply appreciate our volunteer repairers for donating their time.
💡 Donations for repair materials are welcome to help keep this initiative going!
Before the Event (Next Saturday)
Take a look around your home for clothing and household items that fit within the repair categories listed above. If you’re unsure about an item, bring it along—we’ll see what we can do! If we can’t help this time, we can request additional skills for future events.
We look forward to seeing you there!
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