Have you ever had an item break and wanted to repair it, but didn’t know how or where to start? Did you manage to fix it, or did you end up putting it in the bin? This is a frustrating problem that doesn’t often reveal itself, until something important in your life breaks.
In our modern world it is becoming harder and harder to repair your broken items. New products and technology are often designed to be impossible to repair, and are built with cheaper materials causing them to break – and what do you do then? This phenomenon can also be known as ‘planned obsolescence’, when items are designed to break in order to keep you coming back and buying again.
Maybe you have been to your grandparents house and realised that their microwave is from the 1970’s and is still heating up food – maybe you question the safety of a microwave that old, but it hasn’t caused any problems so far! Meanwhile your microwave isn’t working too well after just a couple of years – and didn’t you just upgrade to a better model anyway? “Things were just built differently back then, built to last” as your grandparents would say.
So, how do we overcome this?
This is where we step in. In 2017 our founder Lorna Montgomery’s kettle broke, and she couldn’t find where to fix it in Bath, the only next step was to dispose of it and buy a new one. She wasn’t impressed by this, so gathered a group of people who were good with their hands and enjoyed figuring out how things worked. Between them, they managed to repair her kettle!
But what about the next time something breaks? Fixing the kettle was brilliant, but how many other people around Bath must have had the same problem and been left with the only option of throwing their broken items away? Lorna arranged the group of repairers to meet up regularly and help other people repair their broken items, and Share and Repair was born.
What is a Repair Cafe and how does it work?
A Repair Cafe is an event where repairers try to fix broken items. They are happening all over the world, but we run Repair Cafes every week all over Bath and the surrounding areas. You turn up, a volunteer takes a look at your broken item and tries to repair it whilst you have a cuppa and piece of cake, and then voila! You will hopefully go home with your freshly repaired item. If you’re happy or appreciate the effort put in, you can give a donation to help keep us running Repair Cafes.
Over the years we have built our collection of Repair Cafes up from one to ten locations each month. In 2023 we launched Repair Cafes in Salford, Bear Flat and Corsham, and in 2025 hope to add two more in new locations.
We now have over 200 volunteers at Share and Repair, and many of them are repair experts. They are able to repair almost anything you throw at them, and we have done some very unusual repairs over the years! Some of the items we repair most regularly are coffee machines and kettles (which often simply need descaling with citric acid), but we have also repaired toy cars, life-sized pig statues, Shaun the Sheep, a mini skiing piste and so much more! Take a look at our socials to explore everything we can do.
We also run pop-up Repair Cafes at different locations including the University of Bath and Bath Spa University, spreading knowledge about repairing your own belongings to young people and students. This has led to other possibilities including running HOW TO workshops at the Universities, collecting small home electricals that were left behind in accommodation by University students, and PAT testing and rehoming them.
If you are not able to get to our many locations around Bath and the surrounding areas, or are not available on Saturday mornings, we also repair items in our shop on George Street throughout the week and on Saturdays!
