Couple take lead on repair cafe to drive sustainability

A REPAIR café will launch in Henley next month after a resident took up the project.

The first repair café will be held on Saturday, June 14 at YMCA pavilion in Lawson Road, where it will be hosted every third Saturday of the month going ahead.

From 10.30am to 12.30pm, residents will be able to bring in items in disrepair to a team of volunteers with various skills.

David Stephenson, 68, who previously worked in IT, said that the café currently has 20 volunteers recruited, and is seeking more with skills in electrical repairs.

He said: “The concept of a repair café is you host a free event so people bring in their broken items, free of charge, and you have skilled repairers that help them to repair those things.

“While they do that, they can enjoy a cup of coffee and a slice of cake, hence the café. The idea, as well as fixing items that would otherwise be thrown away, is to create an event for the community but also to help people. More importantly, it will teach them how they repair their own items, so this is all about driving sustainability and reducing waste.

“At the moment we have about 20 volunteers signed up, including people on reception and in the café.

“We’re comfortable that we can fix household machines and appliances, radios and CDs, garden equipment, textiles and clothing, furniture, jewellery and leatherwork and knives and tool sharpening, which apparently is one of the most popular requests at a repair café.”

Mr Stephenson, who has been working on the project with his wife Deb, 65, and Malcolm Hayes said that taking the project to the town council for support was like “pushing on an open door”.

A previous attempt to start a repair café was launched in 2019 by the council’s former town and community manager Helen Barnett and environmental group Greener Henley.

Mr Stephenson said: “When we met with them earlier in the year, it was very much pushing upon an open door because the council had long been trying to have one.

“We were put in touch with Greener Henley which then put us in touch with the town council. They had a goal of starting a repair café in Henley about three or four years ago but it fell by the wayside because of trouble finding volunteers.”

Mr Stephenson, who studied environmental science at the University of London, said that he wanted to take up a project that would put his degree to good use.

He said: “Since I graduated in 1981, I’ve done nothing that’s helped the environment, so better late than never.”

On Saturday, June 7, the town council and Greener Henley will hold a festival as part of Great Big Green Week.

Mr Stephenson will be present along with repair café volunteers to demonstrate how they can prevent items going to waste.

Diana Barnett, secretary of Greener Henley, said that she was pleased to see the initiative finally take off. She said: “We have been keen to have a repair café in Henley for a long time, so it’s really good to finally see this going ahead.”

The repair café initiative was created by Martine Postma, who hosted the first repair café in Amsterdam in October 2009. Since then, it has evolved into a worldwide movement, with more than 2,500 repair cafés hosted worldwide.

Repair Café International Foundation, a non-profit organisation launched by Ms Postma, supports groups wishing to start their own repair cafés around the world.

Henley will now join neighbouring villages in Sonning Common, Marlow and Goring, which run repair cafés of their own.