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Anglesea Community House Ewater system 4–5 Repair Cafe celebrates five years

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In the House

In the House

Repair Cafe celebrates five years

By Kate Long and Jo Murray

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Since 2017, the Repair Cafe Surf Coast has been repairing and empowering us all with the skills to repair and save things that were destined for landfill. In July, the Repair Cafe celebrated its fifth birthday.

Our wonderful Repair Cafe volunteers!

There is a lot to celebrate. In their five years, the amazing volunteers have: ▪ welcomed 1077 visitors who have brought in a total of 1503 items for repair ▪ fixed 828 of these to be taken home (not to landfill) ▪ given advice on a further 238 items which couldn’t be repaired on the spot ▪ saved over 3.3 tonnes from landfill! At the birthday celebrations, one of the founders, Jo Murray spoke about the broken microwave that inspired her and Sue Guinness to start the Repair Cafe. Anglesea ward councillor Mike Bodsworth congratulated all the volunteers and noted how the Repair Cafe fits with the Surf Coast Shire’s focus. Lyn Piggott (91 years young and Australia’s, if not the world’s, oldest Repair Cafe volunteer) cut the birthday cake. Lyn said, ‘My family call me Mrs Fixit. They reckon I have a tool addiction as my collection is so big. I love coming to the Repair Cafe and mending jewellery and other small items. The best part is the community spirit and way the volunteers all work together.’ Rod Tucker spoke on behalf of the volunteers saying what a great sense of satisfaction you get from repairing something and extending its useful life. Recycling and saving things from landfill fosters a great sense of community engagement and achievement and its fun nutting out the problem! The Repair Cafe is fully staffed by local volunteers who contribute varied skills, including sewing, knife sharpening, testing and tagging electrical, mechanical, chain saw, jewellery and furniture repair. The Repair Cafe aims to reduce landfill, so it also helps by collecting many hard to recycle items, those that can’t go in the yellow bins, and sends or delivers them to others for recycling. This also includes blister packs, toothpaste tubes, plastic bottle tops, bread clips and razors. There is also a kids tinkering zone. This is the only Repair Cafe in the Surf Coast Shire so we are very lucky to have it located here in Anglesea. It is open one Sunday a month (except January and June) in the Anglesea Memorial Hall. See page 40 for details of upcoming special events at the Repair Cafe.

Lyn Piggott (pictured above right) is a Torquay resident who has been volunteering at the Repair Cafe since 2017. She first came as a visitor and was so impressed by the many and varied talents of the volunteers she offered to help out. Lyn is a retired arts and crafts teacher who was able to teach any craft, but specialised in metal work on a lathe and different forms of soldering. She is sorry that she can’t solder with an open flame at the Repair Cafe due to safety concerns, but is in great demand fixing jewellery and smaller items. She loves the community spirit of the Repair Cafe.

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