Hi everyone,
While some of us are still running online events, I think we all hope to move back to physical events eventually. Given that we are all in the same situation, is there anyone else interested in co-creating a protocol/approach to use while we need to reduce contamination spread?
Whether we do this here on the forum, a shared document or (yet another!) video call, or a combination of these, is also open for discussion. 
Thanks,
Frank
Great idea Frank!
While it seems unlikely that in-person events will be able to resume for a little while yet, I agree it makes sense to start thinking about how events might need to be adapted to prioritise safety and comply with local/national health measures. Count me in for this conversation 
Given that health advice and regulations are bound to differ from place to place and change over time, weâd likely need to come up with a number of protocols. Instead, I wonder whether it might be easier to build a âmenuâ of strategies to reduce the risk of transmission at events. This âmenuâ could then provide groups in places with different needs and requirements a way to quickly put together event plans appropriate to their local situations.
Perhaps we could use a wiki post in this topic that everyone can edit and contribute to?
What do you reckon?
Edit: below is the âmenuâ weâve come up with in this topic so farâŠ
Below is a crowd-sourced list of potential measures that event organisers can take when thinking about how to resume in-person repair events. This list is neither exhaustive nor prescriptive - feel free to pick and choose based on your requirements and local rules. You can also add your own suggestions by clicking the Edit button at the bottom of the post.
When deciding whether/how to resume in-person events you will need to follow the rules set out by your local or national authority. Be sure to familiarise yourself with these first!
Yes! I suggested a FixFest session on this and it looks like it will be in there somewhere.
@james Agreed that the menu of options is sensible given the international and different contexts for different events.
The wiki sounds like a good start, which we could then use as a basis for the FixFest session that @Dave has suggested. (Not one of the Saturday morning ones, please 
) Maybe something to mention/discuss next Thursday @Janet?
I would be interested in this. Yes to a FixFest session.
Margaret
Thatâs a good point.
What Iâm hoping on Thursday is to identify a couple of areas where we can share best practices and potentially seek out technical advice, and share throughout the network. Perhaps different regional hubs could lead on different areas. And this could/should be one of them.
Areas that already seem of great importance and are recurring
âą Insurance and risk 
âą Volunteer recruitment 
âą Funding 
But there is much more to add, including diversity issues that Josh raised, and what youâve raised about emerging safely from post-lockdown. (And bringing some learning from our online work offline.)
Our friends @Rosalie_Heens and @Inez_Louwagie at Repair & Share (the network of Repair Cafés in Flanders, Belgium) are ahead of the curve, having already held a session on running repair events in the time of coronavirus in which they compiled a list of measures events could take:
- Work with a reservation system. People get a time lock to participate in the Repair Café. You can also use this to ask all kinds of specific questions and do part of the diagnosis in advance. You can work with free online reservation systems such as calendly or appointly. It is more accessible if you also offer people the possibility to make reservations by phone. Anyway, a reservation system always provides a higher threshold than when people can just drop by without an appointment. If you choose to work without a reservation system, make sure you have enough space to let people wait at a safe distance from each other.
- Visitors can only drop off and pick up objects, but not let them go inside. In addition, you can also work with a reservation system here.
- Organize your waiting area, or the entire Repair Café in the open air, e.g. under party tents. If you organize your Repair Café inside, make sure the room is well ventilated.
- Make sure that there is at all times a one and a half meter distance between all repairers and visitors. Possibly you can organize smaller Repair Cafés more often, e.g. split up per type of repair: electrical only, bicycles and textiles only,⊠Where possible, place boundaries on the ground and also make sure there are extra volunteers who keep an eye on whether the distance is respected by everyone and speak to people if necessary.
- If you cannot guarantee the safe distance, you can place partitions between repairers, and between repairers and visitors.
- Forcing visitors and repairers to disinfect their hands. Provide disinfectant gel with at least 70% alcohol and make sure there are enough bottles of disinfectant, for example 1 at the entrance, 1 in the toilets and 1 per repair table.
- Volunteers ask to wear a mouth mask. You can also ask visitors to wear a mouth mask. Or provide plastic face protection (faceshield) for repairers.
- Decontaminate all objects brought in first. If this is not possible (e.g. textiles), you can also leave the objects in place for 72 hours before they are repaired. And again 72h before they are picked up again.
- Do not share objects. Repairers only ask to use their own tools. Ask visitors to use their own ballpoint pen to fill in the form or give each visitor a different ballpoint pen.
[translated from the original Dutch with DeepL]
Full article here:
International cooperation FTW! Great to get this from Belgian friends.
Another thing we might consider: there may be special rules in place limiting the numbers of people who can assemble. Currently it is six people here in the UK. But assuming for a repair event, we would need this number to be higher. This would mean weâd have to be much stricter about volunteer RSVPs as well as have pre-registration.
One big comment:
Visitors can only drop off and pick up objects, but not let them go inside. In addition, you can also work with a reservation system here.
For us, this would be a deal-breaker, as weâre not a free repair service. Weâre a learning space. Which brings me to another important questionâŠ
Given our situation in the UK, Iâm honestly not sure when events like this should happen again. Recalling that we cancelled events before the government declared a lockdown and there is growing controversy over the lifting of lockdown⊠We should be prepared to have a frank conversation in our groups as to when we think the time is right to resume activity. No matter what is officially permitted or allowed.
To give a related example, our allotments are not revisiting their strict rules prohibiting visitors and banning bonfires. Even with the lifting of restrictions by governmentâŠ
Hi,
I will just also add the experience from Sweden, where we are now resuming physical events. First to say that, as you may know, the situation has been different in Sweden in that weâve never really had a lockdown, so our suspension of physical events was always voluntary. Our volunteers wanted to start running events again and our protocol including a booking system via facebook and meetup. We also are only doing events at our base venue - and the venue is only letting one group at a time use it so there is lots of space. Still, if it is nice weather we are using outside as well. We are setting up one station per table with a limit of 3 running at any one time to maintain distance. We have masks for volunteers and disposable masks for participants. We have gloves, eye protection, hand sanitizer, baby wipes, and disinfectant for any tools that need to be shared. We do not usually get many visitors this time of year when the weather is nice, and we know the venue well, so all that helps keep it well within Swedish guidelines (we are doing much more than the guidelines to be honest).
Iâm definitely interested in this too, from a UK perspective (for some point in the future), and a menu seems a good idea, and Iâm with @Janet that drop off and leaving items to be fixed is a deal breaker for us too, as our main objective is education, and weâd become a free version of the repair shops in our city that we are not competing with currently. Clare
Just to add to the conversation, La Cordonella (in Catalonia) have also resumed in-person events. Organiser, Pau (who hasnât made it to the forum yet) has kindly shared the measures theyâve put in place:
Huge have produced some âcustomer experienceâ research around how people are approaching the easing of lockdown restrictions in the USA.
tl;dr: they came up with 5 âpost-isolation personasâ:
| Persona | Description | Concern about COVID-19 | Returning to public spaces |
|---|---|---|---|
| Band-aid rippers | Freedom focused |  
|
Now |
| Trapped butterflies | Socially-driven |
|
Very soon |
| Polite optimists | Cautious but eager |
|
Soon |
| Eggshell walkers | Nervous to emerge |
|
Not for a short while |
| Fulfilled homebodies | In it for the long haul |
|
Not for a long while |
You can download the full report here (PDF, 9.7 MB)
This research indicates that nearly 40% of people in the USA fall into the âEggshell walkersâ category. So, while the commercial focus isnât particularly tailored to community repair, I think this research offers a useful lesson. As weâre thinking about how to resume in-person events, weâll also need to consider that many people in our communities may not be ready to come to events even if/when restrictions are eased.
How can we make sure weâre still making repair accessible to everyone, whether or not they come to events?
I believe they are also know as âanti-maskersâ or âCovidiotsâ
Interesting - and we and our volunteers fall into these categories too.
Hi everyone,
In Belgium (French-speaking part), we have resumed some events, but quite specific ones :
We are planning to resume Repair Cafés at the beginning of July, with specific measures.
Those measures are based on measures from the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, about continuing education (which is the closest to Repair Cafes in our opinion). But we donât want to sacrify the co-repair principle because of health protocols.
We add :
Stay safe !
Jonathan.
Good to know that youâre starting to resume in-person events too Jonathan, and thanks for sharing these suggestions!
Iâve collated all the suggested measures in this topic and added them to my first post above (here). Iâve also made it a wiki post, so anyone can add their own suggestions directly.
@Frank, itâs interesting to see youâre planning an in-person event for the 5th of September.
Are you happy to share which measures youâre putting in place to
Absolutely - I have tried a sensible approach, without being too onerous or paranoid. Controls in bold, the implementation for each as bullet points.
Feel free to point out gaps! 
Distancing
Hygiene
Contact tracing (in line with NHS Test & Trace)
Thank you for sharing @Frank, really interesting to hear about your plans!
One thing Iâm curious about: Will visitors stay with their devices the whole time, or will they have to wait elsewhere? I assume they wonât be able to help fixing or share tools with the volunteers. But I wonder if youâre trying to involve them in the repair nonetheless
Agreed, thanks for this Frank 
I had a similar thought to Vanessa about ways to involve participants in repairs. Iâd be interested to hear your thoughts there.
Are you planning to continue some of the online activities youâve started since lockdown to keep those engaged who donât feel ready to venture out yet?