Stoke Gifford Repair Café
May 27th, 2025
Jane Watkivs tells us about the Stoke Gifford Repair Café.
“It all started when our daughter went to the open day at Winterbourne Barn and came back to tell us that Winterbourne Down had a repair café. My husband Mike and I had vaguely heard of repair cafes, but this prompted us to find out more. We learned repair cafes are groups of people with skills in mending things who volunteer their time and skills to repair items so that they get a longer life, and we can reduce what goes to landfill. An eco-church group was started by the operations manager of St Michael’s Stoke Gifford, we joined the other interested people in the church, and the group agreed that we should try to set up a repair café.
We visited Brislington and St Anne’s repair café and Winterborne Down repair café to see how they worked and had a meeting with people in the church who were interested in fixing things. One thing which did become clear was that it was essential to make sure that the people bringing items to repair know that the repairers were volunteers, not experts, and that we could not make any guarantees about fixing the item.
We held our first repair café on a Saturday in May 2022. At first the Coffee Shop wasn’t operating, so we served simple refreshments. One of the earliest things that was fixed was an old Kenwood mixer and the owner was so pleased that she made us a cake to serve. We only advertised in the church to start with so we could get some practice!
After a few months we advertised the café more widely and welcomed volunteers who are not connected to the church, but who wish to prevent so many things being thrown away, to add to our team.
We now fix a variety of items including bikes, small electrical goods, clothes and toys. Sometimes people have to buy parts for the repair and return with them the next month, sometimes we advise people to seek professional advice and sometimes things just can’t be fixed. At other times people know what to do, but don’t have the tools to achieve the job so they come along to us.
The repair café is on the second Saturday of the month in the Coffee Shop on the green, from 10am to 12pm. We recommend that you come as early as possible, because we can get quite busy. It is also a good chance to have refreshments while you wait. We always welcome new volunteers to fix items, so do come along for a chat to see if you would like to join us.
St Michael’s eco-church group have also run clothes swaps, plant swaps and litter picks and we are always on the look out for other ways to encourage the community to care for our world.”
More details at: stmichaelsbristol.org/saturdays
Next Repair Cafe dates – 14th June and 12th July at 10am
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