Published: October 2025

Sustainable Bucklebury held our first Repair Cafe on Saturday 11 October 2025 - and it was a huge success!  The event, which should be the first of many, was held in the Oak Room, Upper Bucklebury and got off to a great start with a queue forming ahead of our 10am opening time. Repair Cafes are hosted globally and are community events where volunteers with repair skills help people from the local community fix household items - promoting reuse, saving money, and preventing items going to landfill. There is no charge to attend Repair Cafes to get an item repaired, although donations are accepted to help fund the on-going running of the events.

We have received some very positive and encouraging feedback from visitors who attended our first event. Thirty items came through the doors for repair and our volunteers worked with our visitors to successfully fix 21 of those and give advice on items that couldn't be fixed on the day. The standout story came from a 92-year-old local resident who was thrilled to see a sentimental item brought back to life - a lovely reminder of why these cafés matter.  Generous cash donations of £160 were received and these will help cover venue hire, Repair Café insurance, and membership of the global network.

The event could not have taken place without the support of Bucklebury Parish Council and our fantastic team of volunteers who hosted, provided refreshments, organised and repaired - thank you!  We would also like to say a big thank you to Sue Morgan who has taken on the role of "chief organiser" for our Repair Cafe events and ensured everything ran so efficiently and effectively.

The Repair Cafe will be on our agenda at our next Sustainable Bucklebury meeting on Tuesday 4 November at 7pm in the Oak Room.  If you would like to get involved in the Repair Cafe or one of our other initiatives, or just want to find out more, then please come along.