We held our September meeting on Tuesday 9 September 2025 at 7pm at The Oak Room, Upper Bucklebury, please see below for notes from this meeting.
Sue Morgan has very kindly agreed to organise the pilot repair café on Saturday 11 October from 10-12pm. Huge thanks to Sue. BD to deputise
GL confirmed that the Parish Council has agreed to fund £300 towards the repair café which will hopefully cover insurance and venue hire for initial meeting. GL negotiating with insurance company. After this we shall hopefully get donations to help with it’s running but could also try and request general funding from parishioners towards this and other Sustainable Bucklebury projects.
GL also confirmed parish council support of £200 towards meeting and events
We now have a good list of volunteers and repairers for the day
Repairs offered will include:
Small electrical, small mechanical, PAT testing, Sewing repairs, IT advice/laptop issues, Knife/tool sharpening, woodworking/small items of furniture, basic bike repairs (gears /tyre/tube replacement)
KR and HC to oversee the café
It was agreed that volunteers would need to be at the hall from 9am for the initial event and allow 30 minutes for clearing up.
A triage system to be in place to ensure smooth flow of parishioners from car park through to appropriate repair stations
Repairers will bring their own tools but we will provide basic items such as glues/plugs, fuses, table coverings. SM to organise
SM to start advertising the event on Bucklebury FB later in the week
Parishioners to be encouraged to fill in form on our website specifying what they would like to bring to allow forward planning. Some items might not be repairable – e.g. anything petrol – and people can be told this in advance.
It was suggested that luggage scales be used to weigh items so that we can record how much the café saves from going to landfill
Other updates:
Orchard – JA continuing to drive forward this project
Plastic Free initiative – still looking for a lead to run this project
Gardening for Wildlife – some great photos have been received from parishioners and more welcome
Communications – we now have an Instagram page @sustainablebucklebury
Please encourage as many people as possible to join
James Bywater has offered to juice apples for people this autumn. He will press, sterilize and bottle and charge £3/bottle to do this
Soil conditioner give away 4/5 October – Padworth
Libraries give out free caddy bags
There will be a jumble sale at the Memorial Hall on Saturday 27 September organised by Jenny Thurgut. She has also suggested that we look into putting solar panels on the roof of the hall
Sustainable Cleaning
NP talked very briefly about the advantages on the environment and the reduction of single use plastics. Nancy Birtwhistle has published a number of very good books on the subject and is on Instagram and facebook. Well worth following
Please see our Facebook page for the conker detergent recipe.