Announcing Fixfest UK 2020 (online event series, May-July)

We’re super excited to announce Fixfest UK!

Update: 27/03/2020
Due to the coronavirus emergency, Fixfest UK will now be happening online, not in Glasgow as previously planned. Read more about this below.

Please read more, save the date, and pre-register.

We’ll be sharing more details soon and involving you in the programming, so start thinking about the sessions you might like to lead.

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I’m thinking of spoiling myself by taking the sleeper train up from London on Friday night and maybe staying over Saturday night to see a bit of Glasgow on Sunday …

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Sleeper train booked :smiley:

BTW I treated myself to a cabin on the sleeper train (about £130), but reclining seats are only about £30 at the moment.

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More on travel to Glasgow…

Apart from the sleeper train, most of the cheap tickets apparently go on sale about 12 weeks before departure, so that will be around 27th March for 19th June, although there are some cheap London->Glasgow tickets available now.

I’ve got an alert set up on https://www.thetrainline.com/ to tell me when cheap Glasgow<->London tickets appear in case it’s earlier/later.

Anyone got any ideas on good, cheap places to stay?

Nice one Dave, thanks!

I think @Repair_Cafe_Glasgow are working on block-booking some accommodation (perhaps Jon or @Lauren_Crilly can confirm?)

In any case, I stayed at the Youth Hostel there recently, which was fine (and in a pretty amazing old mansion):

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Quick Fixfest UK update: while we’re hoping the event will go ahead as planned in Glasgow in June, due to the coronavirus, contingency plans for a virtual event are being drawn up in case an in-person event becomes unfeasible.

In the meantime, we would strongly encourage potential attendees to book refundable or changeable travel.

We’ll keep this thread updated with the latest info :+1:

:mega: Fixfest UK 2020 is moving online

We have made the decision to run Fixfest UK as a series of online only events. Planning for these is still underway, but they are likely to run from the end of May into early July. We will be announcing more details soon.

This means we will no longer be meeting in person in Glasgow. Please do not book any travel or accommodation. If you have already made bookings, do try to ask for refunds.

Why online?

Given the current coronavirus pandemic is ongoing, we’re not sure when large gatherings or movement across the country will be safe again. While we hope the situation will have improved by June, there is just too much uncertainty and we don’t want to have to cancel or scramble to move everything online at the last minute. Instead, we want to use the next couple of months to focus on how we can best bring everyone together remotely.

Why a series of events?

We don’t think an all-day online event would work very well. A few of the team here at Restart recently sat through a 7-hour online meeting, which was pretty mind-numbing despite its interesting content. We’d like to make the most of the flexibility that online events bring by splitting presentations, discussions and workshops over a number of sessions. The hope is that we can avoid frying everyone’s attention spans and that more people will be able to come along.

Want to come along?

If you haven’t already, you can still register your interest here:
Register your interest

We’ll keep this topic updated with all the latest, so stay tuned :+1:

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So this is what we have in mind… Max of 6 weekly participatory presentations, discussions and workshops (45-90min in length) from mid May through the end of June.

Please let us know what schedules suit you best to attend these

Choose as many as are ok with you

  • Weekday late afternoon (4:30-6:30pm)
  • Weekday evening (8-10pm)
  • Saturday morning
  • Saturday afternoon
  • Sunday morning
  • Sunday afternoon
  • Sunday evening

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Proposed sessions - propose yours!

We’re proposing 3 topics, partly based on the interactions we’ve had online and off with members of the network

  1. Right to Repair in the UK (topics to cover: making the Manchester Declaration come alive, Brexit, bringing it to community events, using our data)

  2. Repair data (how do we collect it? why do we collect it? how best to share it? and what about participant feedback)

  3. Becoming a decentralised network with regional anchor groups (how do we maintain autonomy and local flavour but work together? What can we work together on? Funding? Avoiding duplication of efforts?)

That leaves room for three other workshop topics proposed by you, the community! Take a look at Fixfest UK 2018 for a notion of how open the programme is. Please respond in this thread with your ideas.

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Date saved… Sessions? related to 1 in your list. How do we engage more widely and build a broader community (eg schools, colleges, other active groups, new or different local community groups and media)

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I’m thinking of proposing a codesign workshop explore repair and reuse in cities (considering naturally what changes with COVID-19). It would be very valuable for my research. The only caveat is that I would need participants to fill a separate consent form. Would that be too annoying?

Even if that’s OK, I still need to work out some details and see whether I can get approval from my Uni’s ethics committee on time.

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Worth noting the connect between tool libraries, remakeries/reuse projects and repair events, across our network!

Relevant to many - but not all - how would we define cities? Our internal definition is any population over 100,000.

I think we could work that out.

Ah, sure. I should use “cities and towns” then. Any kind of urbam environment may be relevant to me.

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We still don’t have enough votes to schedule Fixfest! We’d really love to hear from you about your availability @Clare_Seek @Stuart_Ward @sam_Jarman @Victoria_Jackson @Lorna_Montgomery @CHRIS_MCCARTNEY @Repair_Cafe_Wales @Repair_Cafe_Glasgow @Chris_Moller @Sarah_Maloy @Alistair_Brown @Lara_Houston @Margaret_Hersee @Sol_Moyano @Anne_Carlos

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How about some kind of session based on Repair Sessions during lockdown. I can’t see how we’re going to be able to start up Repair Cafes again this year, and with sharing skills being key to our reason for being, how do we go forward? I know there was a session on this before, but couldn’t make it with timings, and can’t find any recordings of it.

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Hi Clare

Better than a recording, we have notes here!

If there is still appetite for more, we can definitely accommodate that! :slight_smile:

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Here are some ideas we’re working on for the remaining sessions, based on your input:

  • Sewing machines, a hands-on session on maintenance, trouble-shooting and fixing (a redux of an event hosted by @Bridget_Harvey and Cheeky Handmades a couple of years ago. Written up by @philip who might be interested too).
  • Capacitors (electrolytic ones), an intro to their scandalous common failure and how to replace them (@Chris_Moller interested?)
  • Online events and organising during the pandemic (@Clare_Seek’s suggestion)
  • Reuse and repair in urban areas @Felipe_Fonseca (potentially with people from reuse orgs like remakeries or tool libraries? @Lorna_Montgomery interested?)
  • Lightning Talks - 5 minutes to share or talk about anything. We could fit about 8-9 of these in one session
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It’s starting to look good. Should we discuss dates? The later the better to me…

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Hello! Sorry we have not been in touch. We have furloughed ourselves, but are stll interested in participating in some way. Most likely that would be our volunteer team getting involved.

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I can see there are the most votes for Weekday Evening slots 8:30-10:00. I can’t speak for others, but this time is not suitable for me as it is bedtime for our wee one.