FIVE years of fastidious fixing has been celebrated in Alcester with a party to mark the fifth birthday of its Repair Cafe.
The popular initiative operates monthly from the Eric Payne Community Centre and has attracted thousands of individuals over the threshold clutching a range of items to be mended from household appliances to treasured heirlooms.
Amongst the numerous benefits are that repairers get to exercise the skills and talents they’ve built up over the years that might otherwise have gone to waste as well as saving items from landfill.
Members of the community, on the other hand, get to meet in a friendly environment and have a chat over a cup of tea as they wait for their items to be fixed.
The celebration for the volunteer repairers involved refreshment and cake with visits by Stratford-on-Avon MP Manuela Perteghella and Alcester mayor Councillor Mike Bowe.
The project was started by Alcester Town Council and looked after by health and wellbeing co-ordinator, Wendy Sherwood, who said: “We wanted to thank our volunteers but also invite our MP to raise awareness of the considerable social, economic and environmental benefits of repair cafes.
“As the concept of a circular economy evolves, repair cafes are likely to play an increasingly important role at a local level and we wanted to highlight this and the wonderful work done by volunteers in Alcester.
“No repair is ever too small or too challenging. Our volunteers are amazing and will have a go at repairing almost anything, household, electrical, electronic, furniture, bicycles, toys, clocks, clothes and textiles.”
The celebrations also marked International Repair Day (October 19) and the fifteenth anniversary of the first UK repair cafe.
The sessions run every fourth Thursday of each month from 2pm until 4.30pm at the community centre on St Faiths Road.
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