And remember: the café operates on the last Saturday of every month (except August and December) from St. Francis Church Hall in Sidmouth!
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At the beginning of the year, Repair Cafés around the world celebrated a big birthday – of fifteen years fixing stuff which would otherwise have been simply thrown away – which actually means that this movement is about both saving money and saving the planet.
And they continue to grow around the world – and around the county, with the District Council announcing dedicated support for local community action groups, including the areas Repair Cafés:
The council is partnering with Community Action Groups (CAG) Devon and funding a dedicated project coordinator to empower new and existing groups – many of which are led by teams of committed volunteers – to work towards a more sustainable future.
CAG Devon works at a grassroots level with residents across the county to improve sustainability and equip them with the tools, skills, and know-how to make a lasting impact. The groups’ activities have a particular focus on ‘green’ initiatives, including waste reduction, composting, sharing, re-use, repair, biodiversity, and energy saving.
That all sounds good, especially because the Sidmouth Repair Café is one of those existing groups focussing on green initiatives, as the blurb from the District Council proudly notes:
One of the groups that has benefited from membership is Sidmouth Repair Café, which last year prevented 1.35 tonnes of waste, avoided nearly three tonnes of carbon emissions and saved consumers over £9,000 by repairing electrical items like vacuum cleaners and radios and mending clothes, bags and teddy bears – all through volunteers’ time worth nearly £16,000. The café operates on the last Saturday of every month (except August and December) from St. Francis Church Hall in Sidmouth.
“As members of the CAG Devon network, we have felt supported and encouraged,” explains Angie Carney of Sidmouth Repair Café. “Each month, a member of our team uses the simple software provided by CAG Devon to enter statistics gathered at our latest event to calculate the amazing impact we have made. Our team has really become its own lively community, and we enjoy opportunities the network provides to share our story with others thinking of setting up a repair café in their own towns or villages.”
And as well as being part of the CAG Devon network, locally the Sidmouth Repair Café is making itself felt, with regular articles in the Sidmouth Herald and its prominence in the Sustainable Sidmouth Champion Awards.
This is from a piece in the Herald last year on ‘the true value’ of the Repair Café:
Sidmouth Repair Cafe’s true value shown in figures | Sidmouth Herald
Well done, the Sidmouth Repair café!
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