Repair & Advice Cafe

We are looking forward to offering sewing and electrical repairs at this month’s cafe! Just stop by with your clothes or bags but if you’d like to get an electrical item repaired, please email us first (ahd5@st-andrews.ac.uk) to book a slot to guarantee being seen.

We are also VERY excited to be running a truth in 10 session alongside the Repair Cafe at the same venue. This is a free event but tickets must be pre-booked. Michelle, our facilitator, had the privilege of being trained by former Vice President Al Gore in Rome this year. Al Gore founded the Climate Reality Leadership training after the success of his documentary, An Inconvenient Truth and has trained 50k+ leaders worldwide. There is now a fantastic new resource to bring to communities in Fife, called The Truth in Ten. You can read more about it here. The mission during the Fife Climate Festival is to share the Truth in 10, with 10 Community Groups, in 10 days.

BACKGROUND

The St Andrews Repair & Advice Café launched in January 2024 with funding from the University of St Andrews’ Community Fund. It takes place on the 2nd/3rd Wednesday of the month and is part of the International Repair Cafe Movement. Every month we have a team of volunteer repairers helping to repair electrical items, clothes and bags and sometimes we have volunteers helping repair ceramics, watches, clocks, musical instruments, bikes and jewellery. This varies from one month to the next depending on their availability.

For anything electrical it is important to email us beforehand, to tell us what you would like to get fixed and we can let you know if it is likely to be fixable. You are still very welcome to come along with an electrical item, but there may not be time to get to your item if you haven’t been in touch beforehand. If you have a musical instrument that needs to be fixed then please get in touch as our volunteer repairer is happy to receive email enquiries outwith the Cafe sessions.

In addition, we run an advisory service (which varies from one month to the next) alongside the repairs to diagnose faults with items, raise awareness about what is and isn’t fixable and how to look after what we own in order to minimize the risk of items breaking and falling apart. So far this has included IT devices, shoe and bag repairs, and clocks and watches. We are also looking to offer advice in other areas of sustainability, be that energy efficiency in our homes, how to run a small business sustainably, sustainable period products, heat pumps, green finance and pensions, or anything else. This also varies from one month to the next.

There will be free refreshments, books/magazines to browse and lots of lovely people to chat to. Each month the Cafe rotates locations so it’s a chance to peek inside places you may not have been into before, and learn more about how great your local town is – previous cafes have been in the North East Fife Community Hub, Cafe Zest, Victory Memorial Hall, David Russell Apartments, the Eco Hub Refill Shop and the Scottish Oceans Institute. Register on this page to receive an email reminder about what the repair cafe will offer each month.

Please note, Dairsie’s Repair Cafe meets on the last Wednesday of each month. So you can go to theirs and come to ours.

PREVIOUS CAFES

In January we hosted a Heat Pumps advisor, in February an advisor on how to save energy in your home, and in March we welcomed the University’s PC Clinic who gave advice on device optimization and security and took donations for the charity reusingIT. At subsequent Cafes we have hosted a discussion on running a socially-responsible and sustainable cafe, had an advisor on hand talking about eco homes, a Madras College Food Tech teacher doing a cooking demonstration for low-energy, sustainable, healthy meals, and a lovely lady doing knife sharpening. We have also hosted a Student Union representative giving out free sustainable period products. If you have any ideas for future Cafes please get in touch, or if you can offer a skill/ advice on a topic related to sustainability, we would love to hear from you.

FUTURE CAFES:

13th Nov
11th Dec