The international Repair Café movement comes to Guelph next month as the first of what organizers hope will be many Guelph Repair Cafés takes place.
It happens Aug. 20 in the multi-purpose room of St. James Anglican Church on Glasgow Street from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
It is an opportunity to bring in that faulty small electrical appliance, that wonky bicycle, that favourite sweater that needs stitching, that laptop that's got a sticky key or that beloved book that needs binding and have experts hopefully fix it for free.
"We have a lot of volunteer experts already and we're looking for more," said Saba Saneinejad, one of the chief organizers of the event. "The more people we have the better it will be."
It's meant for simple repairs not needing new parts, she added. At the very least you could get some free advice from an expert on what the solution to a problem might be.
The Repair Café movement started in the Netherlands in 2009, she said, and has grown around the world. Guelph's event is being organized by Transition Guelph as part of its Tool Library program.
The idea is that you bring in something small that needs fixing. An expert will check it out, make small repairs for free and hopefully help you learn the skill yourself. It's meant to be social, interactive and practical.
If your item needs more serious work, or can't be fixed at all, they'll tell you that too.
"Sometimes it's just a matter of opening something up and seeing what's wrong with it," Saneinejad said.
She once took her old espresso machine to a thriving repair café in Toronto where all it needed to get it going again was a good cleaning inside.
"It's not for people to just bring stuff in then go away. We want people to help learn something too," Saneinejad said.
"This is a way of meeting people, learning things and building community."
Transition Guelph also wants to help people get away from being so disposable with their items. A swap table is also planned for the event.
For updates and more information, or to offer your expert services, check out the Guelph Tool Library's Facebook page.
