Warrandyte Repair Café

Dates

Warrandyte Repair café runs from 10:30am to 12:30pm on the first Sunday of each month (except January).

About Warrandyte Repair Café

What do you do with a broken toaster? Or with a bike when the wheel runs out of true? Or with a sweater full of moth holes? Toss it? No way! The Warrandyte Mechanics Institute and Arts Association (WMI&AA) runs the Warrandyte Repair Café at the Mechanics Hall on the first Sunday of each month.

At the Mechanics Hall, on the corner of Yarra Street and Mitchell Avenue, on the first Sunday morning of each month, everything centres on making repairs. Starting from 10:30 am and ending at 12:30 pm, various volunteer repair experts (we call them our lovely ‘fixers’) will be available to help make all possible repairs free of charge. Tools and materials will also be on hand. People visiting the Repair Café will bring along their broken items from home. Toasters, lamps, hair dryers, clothes, bikes, toys, crockery... anything that is broken is welcome. And can more than likely be repaired. The Repair Café specialists almost always have the know-how.

By promoting repairs, the Warrandyte Repair Cafe wants to help reduce mountains of waste. This is absolutely necessary – we throw away piles of stuff in Australia. Even things which practically have nothing wrong with them, and which could easily be used again after a simple repair. Unfortunately, many people have forgotten that they can have things repaired. Repair Café’s want to change all that.

Repair Café is also meant to put neighbours in touch with each other in a new way. And to discover that a lot of know-how and practical skills can be found close to home. If you repair a bike, a mower or a pair of trousers together with a previously unfamiliar neighbour, you look at that person in a different light the next time you run into them on the street. Jointly making repairs can lead to pleasant contacts in the neighbourhood.

Repairs can save money and resources, and can help minimise CO2 emissions. But above all, Repair Café just wants to show how much fun repairing things can be, and how easy it often is.

Contact

For more information, or if you would like to become one of our ‘fixers’, please contact the Warrandyte Repair Café Co-ordinator, David Tynan tel. 9844 5727 or by email davidtyn@gmail.com.

Repair Café Foundation

The Repair Café concept arose in the Netherlands, in 2009, and was formulated by Martine Postma, at the time an Amsterdam-based journalist/publicist. In 2010, she started the Repair Café Foundation. This foundation provides support to local groups around the world wishing to start their own Repair Café. The foundation also supports the Repair Café in Warrandyte.

The WMI&AA will run the Warrandyte Repair Café on a regular basis (first Sunday of each month) in the Hall.