Fantastic Celebration of World Repair Day 2022

The people of Selwyn brought no fewer than 100 household items to be repaired at the Repair Café held at Te Ara Atea on Saturday 15^th October 2022. Nearly all of these were restored to their former usefulness free of charge; where this could not be done advice was offered on the necessary course of action.

We are indebted to the volunteer repairers who gave up this weekend day. Six people repairing electrical appliances, two people and their machines sewing, one person offering general repairs to anything, one repairing jewellery and one bicycle repairer were kept busy throughout the event, and many ended up doing overtime. Very grateful thanks to our repairers for their mahi.

The number of people who offered their thanks and requested more of such events, along with those who asked to be on the repairing teams in future were testimony to the day’s success and hopefully to a growing awareness that simply throwing household items away is to our environment’s detriment.

Electrical Appliances always require a lot of work partly because they are some of the main items brought in, but also because most of them require lengthy repair time. One old sewing machine was being worked on for the best part of the day. We had six people working on these and it was a continuous operation. So, thanks to Alan and Ben from Ecotech Services, Rudy from Molten Media Trust, and volunteers Lindsay, Mike, and Jack who worked tirelessly on these.

General Repairs – we are always lucky to have Lee taking care of these and ensuring that such things as umbrellas, toys, and a few electrical items were restored to their former glory.

Bicycles again Esteban from Fix Ur Ride was on hand with his trailer repairing bikes and offering tuition to the younger owners on how to do some of their own repairs.

Clothing. There is always a steady stream of people needing items of clothing repaired so Heather and Cheryn and their machines were kept steadily busy throughout the event.

Jewellery – last year several people requested that we add this, and we were lucky enough to have Sally from Warrens Agencies on hand to help a good number retain their precious items. We will certainly retain this feature in the future.

With large numbers of people and items for repair flooding into the room, we relied on great work from our volunteers for making sure repairs were registered, items ticketed, and directed to the correct station.