GRANT AWARDED TO THE ARUNDEL REPAIR CAFE

PROVIDING A RESOURCE FOR RESIDENTS TO RE-USE AND REPAIR BROKEN ITEMS

Last year, Arundel Town Council declared a climate emergency in Arundel. Since then they have been engaging with other organisations and businesses to reduce the causes of climate change through a number of small steps.

One of these steps is to award a grant of £1000 to support the development of an Arundel Repair Café. Housed in the Norfolk Centre on Mill Road, the monthly Repair Café is a not-for-profit, community-led event, promoting sustainability by repairing things! Repairs could include small electrical items, such as toasters and kettles, bikes, jewellery, computers and crockery – bring your broken items and the volunteer experts will do their best to repair them!

The initial idea was successfully trialled at a Sustainability and Fair Trade market in December 2021 by Sustainability market organiser Pip Young and volunteer repairer Roy Smith (pictured). Local resident, Tom Gray, then came on board to help set up Arundel’s own Repair Café.

Tom said: “Repair Café Arundel hopes to help the people of our town to keep and look after their possessions, thus reducing the amount of unnecessary waste to landfill. It is also an opportunity to bring together our unique talented community to teach and learn from one another to live in a more sustainable way.”

“The Repair Cafe is entirely volunteer led, so we need help from the Arundel Community to help support the running of it. If you can spare a few hours a month to help with repairs of items, “front of house” organisation, or run / supply the café (cakes, tea, coffee) please get in touch at repaircafearundel@gmail.com, or find us on Facebook or Instagram.”

The monthly Arundel Repair Café runs from 10am-12.30pm on the third Saturday of every month, on the same day the successful Arundel Farmers Market. The complementary pop-up Sustainability Market – offering ethical products for sale including Fair Trade, upcycled, vintage, and other items helping to reduce our carbon footprint – also takes place in the Norfolk Centre on selected dates. The next one is on Saturday 17 December 2022.