Celebrating our 10th Anniversary.

We had a wonderful celebration on Feb 8 to celebrate our 10th birthday. We now have over 30 volunteers which has grown from the original 10 in Jan 2016 when we set up our first Repair cafe in the church hall on Mowbray Road. Lane Cove Mayor and councillors attended, we are ever grateful for the use of the Living and Learning Centre, Lane Cove, what a great facility for the community.

Past volunteers came to join us and we gave everyone a special award to acknowledge their contribution.

Celia, our front desk coordinator wrote this poem:

The front desk

They wait in line with hopeful face

Fingers crossed to get a place.

Why can’t we book on line they say

No takers for that job, OK!

Will she notice the pants are new

Make sure you keep them out of view.

Can only do one, not all ten

Not two at once…..Go round again

….So everyone will get a go

They’ll only take a minute though!!!

No zips in jeans no microwaves,

Make sure that dog of yours behaves.

No ceramics today, that’s next time,

We’ll see if they can make it chime.

I’ve a vacuum, jewellery clothes and wool.

Sorry all gadget slots are full.

Some come because it saves a bob

But most say, thanks so much!

Great job

The title says it all! Repairs, not alterations to new clothes. Our philosophy is about saving clothing from being thrown out, Toss it! No way! So if you have new pants that need shortening please support your local small business- many suburbs have a sewing alteration shop, many laundries offer sewing services for a small fee as well.

Repair cafe Sydney North recently appeared on SBS news and Wendy Dwyer did an interview on ABC Radio with James Valentine. What great publicity for the repair movement in Sydney. SBS link below:

https://www.sbs.com.au/search?query=repair+cafe&sort=relevancy

We seemed to get a number of injured teddy bears visit recently, a challenge for our sewing volunteers but successful repairs and very happy owners!

We were very busy in March with lots of successful repairs so many items saved from landfill. These included: a record turntable, sandwich maker, toaster, electric cooker, lamps, grinder, coffee plunger, clock radio, timber clock, fan, toy dog , jeans, fixed, , earrings, pendant, jewellery box, necklace, zip on wallet, ceramic statue, wind chimes, bracelet, umbrella.

All repairs will be available this month. We are back to our normal opening hours of 2-4pm.

Hope to see you there.

Due to an issue with booking of the venue the time has been changed to 2.30-4.30 – this is only for February.

Ceramic and jewellery repairs will be available for both cafes in Feb. So bring in your broken bowls, vases, etc, get your beads re strung or that special pair of ear rings repaired.

This 5 strand necklace had two broken strings which were fixed.

The repairer glued the broken bowl one week and the visitor returned the following week for the repairer to paint and seal the joins.

We can do simple woodwork but you may want to consider contacting your local men’s shed for more complex repairs

The Men’s Shed is able to solder metals (and fix wooden items) and they

have local sheds at Ryde/Hunter’s Hill https://mensshed.org/sheds/hunters-hill-ryde-mens-shed/

Lane Cove https://lanecovemensshed.org.au/?_sm_pdc=1&_sm_rid=kfQjqSjj87v0N788J797SZZVR7kqfpqS7sWPW5r

and Willoughby

https://mensshed.org/sheds/willoughby-community-mens-shed/?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiA-vOsBhAAEiwAIWR0TQ7Pmoc25Zi8WuWtjDju2wPUBJdl3zz3kz5a5DNoiCJCvOHGM0A2RRoCQH4QAvD_BwEplenty of other places too

Sometimes we can’t fix some electrical items that are brought to Repair cafe but they may have parts that are of use and we want to keep these precious things out of landfill so you could consider calling Whirl recycling

Small (sized smaller than a microwave) electronic/battery-run items that

can’t be fixed can be dropped off at various venues and they are collected

by Whirl https://www.whirlrecycling.com/?_sm_pdc=1&_sm_rid=kfQjqSjj87v0N788J797SZZVR7kqfpqS7sWPW5r