Hi James. thanls for prompt reply. I now can’t find the map on the Restart website. Norwich was not placed on the map, and the nearest place mentioned was Soham which I think is in Cambs., might be Suffolk, anyway at least 30m from Norwich and poor public transport links. Perhaps you could ask the web person/people to name the establishment on the map which seems to be in the Norwich area ? If somebody local to Norwich has declared an interest maybe I could be put in contact with them. I will soon be contacting local people with a view to starting something here.
hi, Tom
how are you today.
If you want we can share a SOP we are developing to assist groups starting up.
This explains how we run our Repair Cafe Market Harborough and the documentation used.
Best Regards Steve
Hi Steve, don’t know what SOP means but yes please, any help welcome ! I have been in touch with the Soham Repair Cafe in Cambs. about 40 miles away, and they are happy for me & others from Norwich to come to their next session in March. They will be the orange marker on the map, my geography isn’t as good as I thought. Have also been in touch with Oxfam, a local shop has recently done a clothes make & mend workshop. So feeling confident of more local support & progress.
@tom_foxe, apparently there used to be a map on our site marking areas where people had expressed an interest, which I’m guessing is what you found. That was before my time though, and I’m struggling to find it too . Do let us know if you come across it again!
In the meantime, it might be worth reaching out to the folks who ran the textile Repair Café in Norwich last year - details of that event here.
Hi James. Thanks for your mail. pls see mine to Steve below
Hi Steve, don’t know what SOP means but yes please, any help welcome ! I have been in touch with the Soham Repair Cafe in Cambs. about 40 miles away, and they are happy for me & others from Norwich to come to their next session in March. They will be the orange marker on the map, my geography isn’t as good as I thought. Have also been in touch with Oxfam, a local shop has recently done a clothes make & mend workshop. So feeling confident of more local support & progress.
Hi Steve, no big ideas just yet, trying to appeal to like-minded people in Norwich city area with a view to starting small & simple, maybe a pop-up repairshop every 2 or 3 months, more often if we can get the people to run it. SOP will be v. useful as safety must be the top priority & I guess you will have taken advice from others about what works best. You are a bit far away for a visit, 5-hour round trip by car & poor train connections, 3hr30m each way, but thanks for invite ! Will get back to you when some progress made.
In addition to Steve’s resources, there are some potentially useful guides on this site too.
A good place to start might be this guide to running repair events:
Hi James, I’m somewhat IT-challenged, would like to find a draft Repair Cafe poster/flyer that I could edit to put local details on. Can You help please ? It may be on the website but I haven’t managed to find it yet.
On the plus side, Norwich has a Men’s Shed and a group called Men’s Craft and they sound interested in a Repair Cafe. I feel that if I have a colourful poster/flyer it will give people a chance to consider their involvement, I kind of feel I’m doorstepping people & they don’t want to commit immediately. Having said that, 2 men from the Men’s Craft group have already declared an interest and given me their contact details ! I have contacted the Norfolk Volunteer agency, the local Oxfam shop and Visions for Change online events list. Things are moving !
Thanks Steve, that’s great. Our 1st prep. meeting is on Sat, looking forward to making progress. This week a friend gave me a small busker amplifier to mend and all it needed was a new battery, it’s at least 10 years old and lead-acid batteries typically last 3-5 years. I wish now I had taken a video - it was quite a business taking the control panel and electronics off and removing a metal clamp which holds the battery in place. I plan to modify the box, using big cable ties to hold the new battery so that when it needs replacing again the job will be much easier. No electrical knowledge was needed, just a hacksaw blade to cut through a rusty bolt.
I have another, smaller amplifier where the battery can be removed easily, you just have to unclip a battery cover and the battery slides out. Why can’t they all make a simple design like that ? A pro repair would probably have cost £50 but a new battery for £15 is all I needed, & any DIYer could have done it.
Do you know you can register your event with restarters.net and use the online system to record the repairs undertaken thus sharing information about your particular repair with others
This dbase can be shared with you too , helping to make repairs already completed available
To all repairers.
we’ll get back to you when our sop dossier is ready to share.
Just to clarify, this conversation is located on the public Restarters forum (click here to see it). New posts on this topic are automatically emailed to you as notifications. Replying to these notifications via email automatically posts your response on the forum topic. This allows everyone to communicate via email, but still participate in open group discussions.
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Hope that makes sense, but let me know if you have questions
James
We’ve had our first meeting. 22 people came and we formed a committee to take things forward. Lots of others also interested, we’ve had info about possible city centre venues for a first pop-up event. We’ll keep you posted about progress.
. Do let us know if you come across it again!