Finding help to repair our broken gadgets
It belatedly occurred to me that I may know more than others about how the new interest in repairing (rather than replacing) our stuff is developing in practice.
When the Restart Project ran seminars about its Restart Party system, I brought in Sustainable Hackney, who then developed Hackney Fixers jointly with the local branch of Friends of the Earth. HF hold regular repairing events all over the borough - helping people not only with small electronic repairs (the Project's original focus) but also clothes, furniture and bicycle repairs.
Other groups around London and, increasingly, further afield (including abroad) evolved likewise, some with an even more 'analogue' focus. They all contribute to Restart Party Hosts, a Facebook group which helps new volunteer repairing groups to get going.
All the repair events notified to the Restart Project are listed on its searchable events page at https://therestartproject.org/parties/.
Not everything can be fixed on the day by whichever volunteer repairers happen to be there, so the owners are referred to small professional repairers wherever possible. The Project has therefore set up a Repair Directory of small and medium-sized repair businesses, based on a pilot run three years ago in four east London boroughs. That's still in beta form, available at https://therestartproject.org/repairdirectory/ but it now covers eleven north and east London boroughs.
For instance, I was trying to get a very old Dyson vacuum cleaner repaired this summer, after finding that our local domestic repair shop had recently closed down. After Dyson's official repairer condemned it as irreparable, I resorted to the Repair Directory which offered me three possibilities, including an excellent small repair business within feasible travelling distance - even for a non-driver. I wrote a community post about that, which no-one seems to have noticed; hence, this more general post. I hope that it's useful.
When the Restart Project ran seminars about its Restart Party system, I brought in Sustainable Hackney, who then developed Hackney Fixers jointly with the local branch of Friends of the Earth. HF hold regular repairing events all over the borough - helping people not only with small electronic repairs (the Project's original focus) but also clothes, furniture and bicycle repairs.
Other groups around London and, increasingly, further afield (including abroad) evolved likewise, some with an even more 'analogue' focus. They all contribute to Restart Party Hosts, a Facebook group which helps new volunteer repairing groups to get going.
All the repair events notified to the Restart Project are listed on its searchable events page at https://therestartproject.org/parties/.
Not everything can be fixed on the day by whichever volunteer repairers happen to be there, so the owners are referred to small professional repairers wherever possible. The Project has therefore set up a Repair Directory of small and medium-sized repair businesses, based on a pilot run three years ago in four east London boroughs. That's still in beta form, available at https://therestartproject.org/repairdirectory/ but it now covers eleven north and east London boroughs.
For instance, I was trying to get a very old Dyson vacuum cleaner repaired this summer, after finding that our local domestic repair shop had recently closed down. After Dyson's official repairer condemned it as irreparable, I resorted to the Repair Directory which offered me three possibilities, including an excellent small repair business within feasible travelling distance - even for a non-driver. I wrote a community post about that, which no-one seems to have noticed; hence, this more general post. I hope that it's useful.
