Hi I’m Ian

I work in IT, and my background is in electronics design so I know my way around mains voltages and how to use the sharp end of a soldering iron. I grew up on a small farm so learnt lots of practical skills from milking to dry stone walling - although I haven’t had call to use either of these for a long time now.

When I discovered the Restart Project by chance in August 2018 I had never been involved in any community repair activity - and as there wasn’t anything in my local town Crediton I decided to try and set up a repair cafe. Happily I found some support from my local Methodist Church and now in April 2019 we’ve run three and there is a smaller satellite repair event running for the first time next week, followed by two more Crediton Repair Cafe events planned for May and June.

Aside from Repair Cafe fixing, I fixed my wife’s Kindle which got a little damp. I failed to fix my son’s laptop (in fact I completely broke it!) which was a bit of a disappointment not just to him If something’s broken I’ll have a go at fixing it if I can get inside it, because throwing something away is an absolute last resort.

I also enjoy playing around with watercolours (and even occasionally producing a nearly-finished painting), and have a dabble at creative writing.