Farnham Repair Café relaunches with charity status

With more than 1,400 repair cafes worldwide, Farnham Repair Café is believed to be the first in the UK to gain charity status. Professor Martin Charter, Founder and Chair of the Board of Trustees of Farnham Repair Café said, “Our new legal status will provide a more professional and higher profile platform for development and fundraising.”

Farnham Repair Cafe’s success can be measured in the numbers – with 30 sessions and more than 1,000 people through the doors in two years completing more than 300 repairs.

“Our repairers are highly skilled and do a brilliant job,” says Charter. “Farnham Repair Café is not only a fantastic resource for reducing waste locally – and a community meeting place – it’s also helping to focus minds on how to turn around the modern ‘throwaway culture’ of widespread acceptance of inbuilt obsolescence in consumer products and belief that repair is difficult or not worthwhile. Our experience is that many Farnham residents are now starting to view the cafe as a resource of knowledge and expertise, a place to learn and a friendly meeting place for people from all walks of life. Our research indicates that an estimated 50% of visitors attempted a repair at home as a result of attending Farnham Repair Café.”

The cafe has repair stations for household products: electronics/electrical, mechanicals, laptops, bicycles, clothing/textiles and furniture. Most of the successful repairs have been completed on clothing/textiles and electronics/electrical devices.

The relaunch will be attended by the Mayor of Farnham, Mike Hodge, and the Deputy Vice Chancellor of the University for the Creative Arts, Alan Cooke and will take place at the home of Farnham Repair Café in Farnham United Reformed Church. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Farnham Repair Café is backed by a Board of Trustees, all of whom are all local residents and all volunteer their repair skills.

Earlier this year Martin Charter reported on the Farnham Repair Café – find out more.

The cafe has its own youtube channel and repair wiki.

Farnham Repair Café is a collaboration between The Centre for Sustainable Design, University for the Creative Arts, Farnham Town Council and Farnham United Reformed Church. It is part of the Repair Café Foundation International, a network of over nearly 1400 repair cafes worldwide. Each session is open every second Saturday of the month between 10am – 1.00pm and offers advice and repairs on all kinds of products, Address: Farnham Repair Café, Farnham United Reformed Church, South Street, Farnham, GU9 7QU