Hello everyone,
Leicester has now 5 communities ready to work with us to start their repair events - Harborough, Melton, Lutterworth, Hinckley, Loughborough.
I need some tips on writing press releases. If you have any template. it will be greatly appreciated.
Hey Marie - there is a kind of press release template in the Restart Party Kit downloadable bundle, but it needs a bit of an update.
Here it is as it stands, which will hopefully that help give you some ideas:
Elements of a sample press release
The repair revolution has arrived in
[your community]. Tired of our throw-away culture,[Your name]group will host[place]'sfirst community repair event on[date]at[location]. Volunteers will help those with broken[what you fix]to repair and prevent waste. The event is free and open to all.
[Quotes from you and your members]
[Details about your event, including about the hosting venue and other special 'party' aspects.]The event is inspired by Londonâs Restart Parties, three hour pop-up events where volunteers with technical skills help Londoners repair and maintain their electronics and small electrical appliances â for free. The Restart Project, a young charity based in London, has hosted over 80 such events in pubs, galleries, libraries and community spaces in just over two years and spread excitement for community repair across the UK and beyond.
âI am really excited by the potential to build a global community of fixers through Restart Parties to bring about more sustainable gadget useâ, says co-founder of The Restart Project Ugo Vallauri. âThe Restart Project successfully taps into overlapping concerns, for the environment, for thrift and into a growing desire to resist consumerist excess.â
The Restart Project is scaling its community repair events by helping others to replicate them elsewhere. Instead of forming chapters or franchises, The Restart Project encourages existing organisations and community groups to host Restart Parties, and join a growing network.
[Information from your group about how you heard about The Restart Project and how it inspired you to run your own event.]
[You may want to add information about your own group and how it operates.]
I made a couple of small changes to the text above - given our trustees have changed 
since it was written, but feel free to use the text @Marie_Lefebvre - hope it helps!
Thank you @Janet and @james, I will try to adapt to our needs. I have been getting a lotof advices from people so hopefully, Ill become more proficient at it. - thanks.
hey good news BBC Social media team will be filming leicester fixers on the 1st of december.
I manage to write the press release with advices from a lot people which is nice.
Have you got any contacts with ITV local news or channel4?
Hi Marie, wow well done. Weâll be sure to share top âright to repairâ talking points with you before then. In past, weâve had interest from ITV local in Manchester - almost convinced them to come to Fixfest. And in past on ITV East Anglia, I believe, who visited Cambridge. Nobody at Channel 4.
When interviewed, Iâve often expanded on the last point, along the lines of: for small electronics, usually 80+ % of the CO2 equivalent emitted during the whole lifecycle of the product happens during manufacturing, so the only action you can take at an individual level which has some impact is to use the device for longer. Of course devices often break, so to extend their life you need to repair them. (Supporting reference: The footprint of those iPhones).
Thatâs a good starting point to then branch to community repair, supporting independent repair businsess and policy lobbying.
Thank you all for your inpuit. We had a great event on saturday and Harris from the BBC did a lot of filming, interviewed participants, repairers and myself. we shall get the video in the next week or so
Hi Marie, I have a similar question for the community.
I find it very easy to get people on board who are already aware of repair cafes, sustainability, etc, but I struggle with an âelevator pitchâ for everyone else! I think some people just canât imagine there are members of their community who are willing to help other people for free, and itâs worth fixing things. I also find it hard to get across the idea we donât just want to fix stuff FOR you, we want to teach skills.
Does anyone have a snappy way to describe what we do? I find myself cornering unsuspecting people in pubs explaining in great detail about planned obsolescence 
Hi Katie,
I tend to talk about the repair event as an expression of the ââcollaborative human spiritââ - I emphasize on ââthe beauty and ingenuity of people who are solving problemsââ and then in turn ââtransforming individuals from feeling that they canât to actually feeling that they can repairââ.
This is one of the speech I did yesterday introducing a movie showing - https://www.facebook.com/LeicFoE/videos/1983192265090038/UzpfSTg3Mjg1Mzg0Mjg0NTM3ODoxNDY2ODAzNzQzNDUwMzgy/?eid=ARCi5kP-wzoA3LHjlu0J9GTxjp_3bpFlPX_1tEbP1UEwvHaMj531uL2wUVNsKY5kWm_k6RA4tpWlPCHu
when people tell me that repair is for the environment, I always try to tell them that it is not only so they can relate to it in different ways by saying that it is about education, local economy, velocity of exchanges, because they tend to know about planned obsolescence and environmental credentials. ââ
Good on you on cornering people in the pub. i think the more places we appear where we are unexpected the better. (spreading like a virus)
lol, thanks- though Iâd prefer to use a gently gently approach rather than accidentally boring them to death 
You never know, @katie, the presenters of BBC Breakfast seemed quite up to talk about spare parts, obsolescence and repair. Unexpected!
As for an âelevator pitchâ - if people canât believe some people want to help teach otheres to repair, perhaps the pitch comes from your volunteers themselves? @Dave @Panda and @benski are very articulate about why they volunteer their skills. We have profiles of our volunteers on our website and these help share their motivations
Additionally, some of our volunteers have signed up to our âmedia rosterâ so we can ask them to help out with media appearances.