FERRYSIDE in Carmarthenshire held its very first Repair Café on Saturday (Jan 25).
Over the past two years Repair Café Wales has expanded its operations tremendously. Repair Cafe Wales was founded by Joe O’Mahoney and Cerys Jones in April 2017 to start and support repair cafés in Wales.
Events in Wales are held at: Mold, Penarth, Cardiff, Newtown, Neath, Llanfyllin, Newport, Llantwit Major and Swansea and we can now add Ferryside to that long growing list.
In their simplest form, repair cafés are pop up events located on regular dates where the local community can get their broken household items repaired for free by volunteers. The types of things that are fixed include clothes, household electrics, technology, woodwork, children’s toys, furniture and bikes.
Frustrated with the unsustainable growth of landfill and waste, the international repair café movement started in Amsterdam and now there are over 1,800 repair cafés around the world.
Speaking about the start of the Repair Cafe in Ferryside Simoné Bizzell said: “Thanks to the support and sponsorship of the Ferryside Village Forum, the first Ferryside Repair Cafe took place today and was a great success!
“We undertook 12 repairs; including 2 bikes, a stereo system, various items of clothing, a pump and a large garden Xmas lamppost! A number of people also received advice with regard to knitting and sewing patterns/techniques. All of this was made possible by the ‘Fixperts’ and other volunteers who generously gave up there time and expertise.
“I would like to thank Zena Koren-Martin, Sue Abbot, Jenny Thompson, Jay Castle, Dominique Northeast, Lucy Evans, Mike Evans, Keith Harding and Nik Bizzell-Browning, for making the day such a success.
“I’d also like to thank the following: Robin Bussell (of Robin Bussell Electrical & Finishing Ltd) who came to our rescue and fixed the heating at the eleventh hour. Peter Tully who photographed the event for the local news and Mark Davies (of Mark’s PAT testing in Kidwelly) for doing our PAT testing.
“Last but not least, thank you to the residents of Ferryside and the surrounding areas, who came along and supported us.”
The next Ferryside Repair Café will be on Saturday February 29th, 12pm-3pm.
For more information, email: simonebizzell@yahoo.co.uk or visit https://repaircafewales.org
Photos and video: Peter A Tully
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