I would be interested in this. Yes to a FixFest session.
Margaret
1 Like
That’s a good point.
What I’m 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
• Insurance and risk 
• Volunteer recruitment 
• Funding 
But there is much more to add, including diversity issues that Josh raised, and what you’ve raised about emerging safely from post-lockdown. (And bringing some learning from our online work offline.)
2 Likes
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:
click/tap here for the list of measures covered in the session
- 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:
2 Likes
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 we’d 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 we’re not a free repair service. We’re a learning space. Which brings me to another important question…
What are our own criteria for when to resume these events?
Given our situation in the UK, I’m 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 government…
5 Likes
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 we’ve 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).
3 Likes
I’m definitely interested in this too, from a UK perspective (for some point in the future), and a menu seems a good idea, and I’m 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 we’d become a free version of the repair shops in our city that we are not competing with currently. Clare
4 Likes
Just to add to the conversation, La Cordonella (in Catalonia) have also resumed in-person events. Organiser, Pau (who hasn’t made it to the forum yet) has kindly shared the measures they’ve put in place:
2 Likes
Huge have produced some ‘customer experience’ research around how people are approaching the easing of lockdown restrictions in the USA.
tl;dr: they came up with 5 ‘post-isolation personas’:
| 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 ‘Eggshell walkers’ category. So, while the commercial focus isn’t particularly tailored to community repair, I think this research offers a useful lesson. As we’re thinking about how to resume in-person events, we’ll 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 we’re still making repair accessible to everyone, whether or not they come to events?
2 Likes
I believe they are also know as “anti-maskers” or “Covidiots”
Interesting - and we and our volunteers fall into these categories too.
1 Like
Hi everyone,
In Belgium (French-speaking part), we have resumed some events, but quite specific ones :
- Outdoors bike repair events
- Sewing machine repair events
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 don’t want to sacrify the co-repair principle because of health protocols.
We add :
- Preferably outdoor activities
- Preferably with masks and hydroalcoholic gel
- Pre-registration and scheduled visits (approx. 30 min per repair)
Stay safe !
Jonathan.
2 Likes
Good to know that you’re starting to resume in-person events too Jonathan, and thanks for sharing these suggestions!
I’ve collated all the suggested measures in this topic and added them to my first post above (here). I’ve also made it a wiki post, so anyone can add their own suggestions directly.
@Frank, it’s interesting to see you’re planning an in-person event for the 5th of September.
Are you happy to share which measures you’re 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
- Signage at the entrance warning visitors not to enter if they have listed covid-19 symptons (based on NHS guidance & wording).
- One-way system for entrance & exit
- Limit number of people on-site to 4 volunteers and a maximum of 4 visitors.
- Tables laid out for at least 1 m (possibly 2 m) distance between all.
Hygiene
- No tea/coffee will be provided for visitors. Volunteers to provide their own.
- No waiting area for visitors.
- Doors will be left open as much as possible, meaning “high touch” surfaces such as door handles will not be used.
- Volunteers to sanitise hands between each repair (each visitor).
- Face covering (nose & mouth) required indoors for volunteers & visitors.
- Visitors to use hand sanitiser (provided) upon entry.
- No tool sharing between volunteers.
- Cash donations will be left untouched for 5 days. (Note: also providing contactless donation option.)
Contact tracing (in line with NHS Test & Trace)
- Visitors will be required to provide contact details (phone or email).
- Visitors will be requested to inform the Marlow Repair Café organisers if they develop symptoms in the 14 days following the event.
- Visitors will sign that they have read & understood the terms & conditions of entry of the Marlow Repair Café, including contact tracing.
- This information will be destroyed after 21 days.
1 Like
Thank you for sharing @Frank, really interesting to hear about your plans!
One thing I’m curious about: Will visitors stay with their devices the whole time, or will they have to wait elsewhere? I assume they won’t be able to help fixing or share tools with the volunteers. But I wonder if you’re 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. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts there.
Are you planning to continue some of the online activities you’ve started since lockdown to keep those engaged who don’t feel ready to venture out yet?
Visitors will need to stay with their devices or items all the time, as before. What tended to happen is that the volunteer repairs, but the visitor watches and get an explanation on how to fault find or repair in the future. So a situation of no tool sharing is not that far from before.
Regarding online activities: no, we are not continuing those at present. You are right that some people are not ready to venture out yet (including some of our volunteers), but I hope that there is more engagement with offline events rather than “yet another Zoom meeting”. I think many people feel like that after months of screen-only meetings!
Fair enough, I think many of us can relate to video conference fatigue!
That said, given that many repair volunteers are (understandably) reluctant to come back to in-person events, I’ve been wondering whether it’s worth exploring hybrid models that could include volunteers at home keen to participate.
For example, could there be one or two remote repairers on call (via video call, text chat or phone call) to advise or work with the repair team on the ground?
@Frank I’m curious - did your event on September 5 take place? If so, how did it go? I bet other groups on here would be eager to learn from your experience
Yes, it did and we had a steady stream of visitors. A few confused ones who were asking about the “menu” for the “café”, but that is part of the education process…
Pretty much everyone got the “sanitise hands & leave contact details” routine without volunteer intervention, more people needed reminding about face covering.
Good mix of ages and interesting items with lovely stories: 1960s rocket lamp, 1920s (specific brand) metal tin, an old LP player, vintage lamp… Explicitly advertising (on Facebook) a new skill from one of our volunteers (repairing ceramics/pottery) got 3 visitors.
Running it again in October 
Edited to add: “provision of voluntary services” and “education or training” are both listed as exclusions from the “rule of 6” in force as of today. gov.uk link
3 Likes