Hello! Do any repair groups out there have relationships with charity shops? We’ve fixed around 30 items in the past month for a local charity shop that have then been sold on, but have found that many bigger charity shop ‘chains’ won’t work with us because they don’t accept electrical items. Would love to see more repair group x charity shop relationships.
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Hi Sarah,
This is good to hear you are doing this. I’ve thought about doing this for our repair cafe in Hanham (Bristol) to keep us volunteers busy on quieter sessions. I haven’t started doing it yet but did speak to a Sue Ryder Charity Shop local to us who were definitely up for the idea. They showed me piles of stuff they couldn’t sell because it failed a PAT test.
Which charity shop(s) have you been working with?
As you say it would be very interesting to hear if any other Repair Cafes are doing this because it seems a very logical way to stop more things being thrown away!
Matt
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We ran a Reuse Shop in Glastonbury and have since donated some working and PAT tested electrical appliances to local RSPCA and a charity shop in Cheddar, Somerset. Tonnes of useful appliances saved from landfill. In the absence of reuse shops at council recycling sites, which is where they should be all over the UK in our opinion, the charity shop option is good but space is often an issue, display and storage space.
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Ooo lovely to hear you are working with a charity shop in Cheddar - I grew up there and my family still live there! Which charity shop?
Have we tried making a connection with any of the charity shops @Mike_Grahn and @Dermot_Jones?
Hi paula
A new one opened in February called Heart of Cheddar. They have a website.
Since the demise of our Reuse Shop (premises became unavailable) I have been trying to think of ways to get this working in the community by linking Repair Cafés with Charity shops which take electricals.
Can you think how this could work? If the charity shop sells the items they could give a donation to Repair Café for any repairs they did or PAT testing done. Donations from the public could be to RCs in their sessions if someone was willing to take items home and repair/PAT test then deliver to receptive charity shop. Many public do not want to take the trouble to post items on Marketplace, etc, they just want to drop off and run. Hence the council sites get landed with 1.6million tonnes of e-waste every year!! 45% of it reusable and 10% still in packaging, brand new.
Regards
Laura
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Regarding PAT testing…
Does the organiser/volunteer carry any liability?
If so, is liability covered by insurance?
Does the PAT tester have to be certified?
Do you provide a signed certificate/sticker for each device tested, pass or fail?
Are there any devices that you don’t accept for testing?
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Oh, yes, I’m am aware of that and have been watching developments!
Very bad news about the reuse centre closing. Do you have electrical recycling anywhere nearby?
I think a lot of repair volunteers are happy to do for free - certainly that’s the case in my Restart repair group. There is the repair cafe at Cheddar Methodist Church - are you connected with this? Imagine many of those folks would be willing do repair and PAT testing for free.
If you live nearby be great to meet up and chat next time I visit!
Paula
Hi Monique
We have Public Liability Insurance
Our PAT testers have a licence.
We record and sticker every appliance we test
We do almost everything but not white goods or items with oil or fuel in
Regards
Laura
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Hi. Paula
Yes I do know Suzanne at Cheddar Valley RC and helped them when they set up last year!
We in Glastonbury charge a nominal amount for PAT testing and accept donations for the repairs we do as we have to pay for hall hire, insurance, admin fees, café supplies, etc.
The waste management company who run the local recycling sites for the council at Cheddar, Street and Wells are BIFFA. They are incredibly unhelpful; we had meetings with them and exchanged countless emails but no good at all. Somerset Council seem unable to get to grips with e-waste either.
We ran the Reuse Shop for 8 months and proved it could work efficiently and effectively and benefited everyone; we had about 10 volunteers to repair, PAT test, clean and sell items.
Call me when you are next near, it would be great to meet for a coffee and a chat.
07729618368
Have a good day
Regards
Laura
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Agreed, Laura. Every waste authority should have a resuse shop. But from my experience as a volunteer PAT tester in one of the Reuse Shops run by HertsCC alongside a council tip, I think there may be a subtle difference to be aware of between the items we receive, from ones going to a charity shop.
Besides plenty of IKEA lamps and some excellent items, probably unwanted gifts, we get a fair few in a very grubby state that I can’t imagine anyone having the nerve to take into a charity shop! (Maybe some people don’t share my standards and sensibilities). Also a fair few items without chargers or mains adapters, especially cordless vacuums (often far from squeeky clean) and DAB radios, some looking like they spent years in a kitchen collecting grease and grime. (I think we currently have 4 or 5 Pure DAB radios waiting for me to see if we have adapter for any of them!)
So what am I saying? Reuse shops linked with recycling centres may have greater capacity, but I guess you may get highr quality items through charity shops.
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FYI - (if you don’t mind someone chiming in from the other side of the planet)
We’re a charity shop (AKA Op Shop) that does a lot of repairs & do our own PAT testing. We wouldn’t be keen to trust any PAT testing done by someone else. As the charity shop’s the retailer it’s their responsibility to ensure the electrical safety - not the donor. That said - I’ve seen items passed by our own PAT testing that had unsafe wiring that the tester hadn’t noticed. Some charity shops ‘chains’, like Anglicare, reject all electricals. Others, like Ted Noffs, send donated electricals to a central repair workshop. Some, like Reverse Garbage who we (sometimes) work closely with, just sell electricals “as is” and as far as I know they’ve never had an issue.
Some customers are keen to accept really old electricals “as is” because they know they can do a repair themselves, or have it repaired professionally - especially some old old power tools that were built like tanks. Right now we’ve one of those big old radios from the 1920s in the shop that stands 3 feet tall. It would make a PAT tester turn pale.
And, yes, we’ve an e-waste skip full of modern appliances and power tools that failed testing.
Hope this helps
Cheers - Len
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@Laura_Sorensen this is what we do - people donate their items to the charity shop; we repair, PAT test and price it, and then return it to the charity shop for sale. We then split any profits 50/50, and have made about £250 from this in the past month, so it works well!
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Thanks for the info re PAT testing. One more question please… do the volunteers pay for their own training and licencing or can they get some assistance?
Hi Monique
We employ a few people part time - most of the PAT testing is done by them - but a few volunteers have also been certified. All costs associated with training and licencing are covered by The Bower - whether volunteer or paid.
We’ve an old Uni-T UT528 PAT unit that’s showing its age & we should really buy a new one.
My experience with charity shops - the ones that are incorporated and actual charities. They’re run by a board - and all it takes is one single board member with an unreasonably strict interpretation of the rules. That can completely gum up really good initiatives. So I hope Repair Cafe people aren’t too disheartened by the response they may get from some.
Cheers - Len
Whoops - just saw this post from Monique sitting in my email inbox first thing in the morning and thought it was meant for me.
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Hello Monique
Our volunteers get the PAT testing costs paid by our Repair Café who accept donations from the public when we mend (or not) their appliances. Their donations help us to keep going, pay for insurance, hall hire, admin costs, supplies, coffee, cake and all the other things that cost money. When we get excess donations we have a vote and give surplus to various local good causes and charities. So far in about 52 months of operating since 2021 we have given away more than £1,800 to other projects. We love that this helps the local economy go round and round!
Sorry I went off the PAT test enquiry but maybe this could be another discussion point about the usefulness of Repair Cafés?
Best wishes
Laura
Glastonbury, Somerset
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At The Fixery in Reepham we’re lucky enough to be part of a community centre that has a charity shop within the building. We fix and check a certain amount of stuff for them and it’s a good relationship. They’re wary of taking on many electricals, though, for fear of getting swamped. They spend a lot of time getting rid of junk that people have dumped on them.
We do PAT testing, soundly and carefully, although perhaps with less attention to qualifications and paperwork than some groups here. But I’m wary of charity shops – or anyone else – thinking PAT is the answer to every aspect of electrical safety.
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