Who wants to be part of something awesome ? The BIG FIX U.K

Dear repair cafes, my name is Catherine Causley and I am the Re-use project officer at Devon County Council. I work to encourage re-use over waste disposal. As part of my role I work with repair cafes amongst other groups.

In February we held an event called the Big Fix, the aim was to promote the all the repair cafes in Devon. Our hook to get the general public involved was that we, as Devon were trying to beat Cambridge, who in 2017 declared they held the worlds largest repair cafe where they fixed 232 items in a single day, obviously a fantastic achievement.

The aim was never to be the best but it was about generating press attention and getting the message of repair, out there. So the idea of the BIG FIX was born. There are 9 repair cafes in Devon and 6 choose to be involved in the event - others were unable to, due to also running on that day or for other reasons.

The event was held in a large church hall in Exeter and had 40 menders in attendance, 268 items were fixed in a single day! Our local news were interested and filmed 2 segments and we had 5 interviews on local radio.

In addition to fixing loads of stuff and alerting people to repairs cafes - over 400 people came, it boosted attendance at the usual repair cafes that followed in the subsequent months.

Now i have a new plan! In february 2020 i would like to run a U.K wide repair cafe event, called the BIG FIX U.K. The aim is to see how many repair cafes can run on a single day, in their usual location and time. I will support this by providing press release templates, information and collate all the figures from the event so we can work out the overall success.

What i need from you

Are you planning on running your usual repair cafe on Saturday 15th Feb ?
Are you able to move the date of your usual repair cafe so you can or put on an additional date?

There are 92 - ish repair cafes running in the U.K, just imagine the impact we would have if, even 1/3rd of us all ran on the same date. I am sure we would get national press coverage which would help to promote all our repair cafes and would attract new menders and volunteers to the cafes.


I would be really keen to hear your thoughts including any issues you think i may have overlooked.

Please share this with any local contacts you have.

Best wishes

Catherine Causley
Re-use project Officer
Devon County Council