Repair café opens in Baptist church

The Chiddingfold Repair Café has launched in Chiddingfold Baptist Church in south Surrey. Minister Joao Bolzan explains more  

 

The Repair Café is a Chiddingfold Baptist Church initiative with the support of Godalming Rotary Club, What Next?, an environmental group, and local volunteers. It runs every second Saturday of the month from 10am to 12:30pm at the church; the inauguration was on the 13 May.

What are the benefits of a repair café? Apart from the obvious fact that people will save money by repairing goods that otherwise would likely be thrown away or end up in the landfill, we are helping preserve the environment.

Repair cafés also encourage people to work together, share knowledge, and learn from one another. This helps people get to know their neighbours, practise teamwork, and build relationships from a place of reciprocity and trust; it is also a place to put repair skills to use in helping others.

Those coming into the church are offered refreshments and the chance to get to know us more; this raises the church’s profile in the village and will hopefully create opportunities for sharing the Gospel.

The idea came up when a lady from the village, a non-church member, came to one of our Sunday services about six months ago. We had a good chat at the end of the service and prayed together; after prayer, whilst we were talking, she mentioned an existing Repair Café in Godalming that she helps with. She was very excited about it, and it got my attention so I said I would like to find out more. She is a Rotarian and said if we were keen to open one in Chiddingfold, they would be happy to partner with us and provide guidance, paperwork etc. I took the idea to our leaders, and they also got excited, so we got the ball rolling.

We adapted the paperwork from the Godalming Repair Café to our reality. We have done a specific risk assessment for our church, and I checked with our insurance provider to ensure we are covered. The whole process took around six months but can take less. We recruited most volunteers via a Facebook appeal on the village community page, the next-door neighbour app and through word of mouth.

And what a fantastic first day we had!

The repair café was officially opened by Cllr Shirley Faraday, Mayor of Godalming, and we had live music from the local ukulele group, You Ukes, headed by the Mayor.

It was a bustling atmosphere with at least 16 repairs and over 30kg saved from landfill.

We look forward to next month’s session.

 

Joao Bolzan is the minister of Chiddingfold Baptist Church