Ledbury Celebrates Three Years of Repair Café

Ledbury’s popular Repair Café was back in action last Saturday in the Community Hall, fixing a wide variety of household items for an appreciative Ledbury public, in return for cash donations.

This event marked the Repair Café’s third anniversary since its launch way back in February 2020 at Burgage Hall, shortly before the Covid 19 pandemic struck. Last Saturday also celebrated the first anniversary of Repair Café Ledbury's move to the much larger venue of Ledbury Community Hall, which underlines how successful the concept continues to be.

Refreshed from their Christmas and New Year break, the team of talented volunteers were kitted out with brand new aprons proudly bearing the Repair Café Ledbury logo, courtesy of the National Lottery Community Fund.

In addition to the regular flow of tool sharpening, faulty vacuum cleaners, toasters and table lamps, over forty items were tackled on the day, including half a dozen sewing repairs. Some of the more unusual items included a vintage reel-to-reel tape recorder and an animated Elvis Presley singing toy!

“The variety of things that people bring for repair never fails to amaze us” said volunteer Keith, who looks after the reception desk, “but we’ll always try and find a pragmatic way of getting things working again as economically as possible.”

A special mention this month goes to the young man who transported his microwave oven to the Repair Café on the front of a special “cargo bike”, a very environmentally friendly form of transport indeed and totally in keeping with the Repair Café theme of reducing the demand on planetary resources.

Sewing team member Rhian collaborated with multi-talented repairer Wez, combining his legendary leatherwork skills to return a much loved and very colourful handbag to its former glory.

If you’d like to visit the Repair Café, then you can bring strictly one item per household, which must be booked in advance @ repaircafeledbury.org.uk for the next event on Saturday 4th March. Places do fill up quickly though, so early booking is highly recommended!