Repair & Advice Cafe

Next Cafe: Wednesday the 11th of December at the Beacon Bar, The Union

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

Everyone is welcome! Join the repair movement and be a part of the change!

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 (transition@st andrews.ac.uk) 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 or wooden 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 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, The Scottish Oceans Institute and Walter Bower House 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:

Dates for 2025 will be published soon