Gravesham Repair Café

Recently a sub group of Gravesham Repair Café needed an overlocker (a special kind of sewing machine) for their sewing projects.  This group by the name of Crafty Yarns has its own Facebook page and it’s definitely worth checking out. ‘Wanted’ requests were placed on websites like Freecycle, Freegle and Olio.  Elizzy quickly responded offering an overlocker and even personally delivered it today at St George’s Church Hall. While Elizzy stayed for a coffee and chat we established that she wanted a bike and a laptop. Amazingly one of our volunteer repairers had a bike that he wanted to move on and another felt confident of sourcing a laptop for her.  It seems that by Elizzy helping us source an overlocker she'll be the happy recipient of the bike and laptop she wanted. Meanwhile, our team of repairers was at work dealing with clocks, fans, toaster, wildlife camera, a very long tree pruner and more...    

It was a warm sunny day.  Our team of repairers dealt with a typical range of items - power supplies, radios, vacuum cleaners, even a snapped wooden bannister.  Meanwhile we were joined by the ladies creating emergency blankets out of empty crisp packets.       Earlier in the year we received a donation from Gravesham Friendly  and we are happy to display their pull-up banner.   

This website author has not been able to attend lately, but colleagues have provided some photos.   Gravesend May 2025   Vigo May 2025  

Colleagues have provided some photos.   Gravesend April 2025   Vigo April 2025  

Housebuilder Bellway London, which is building new homes at Harbour Village in Northfleet, has made a contribution of £500 to our non-profit Repair Café. Bellway people visited our December Repair Café to see our work and celebrate the award. We are of course enormously grateful.  It's donations like this that allow us to keep a stock of the tools and materials we need to effect the repairs for our visitors. Cameras flashed on the day.  Here are some of the views seen by Bellway.

Late last year Gravesham Friendly launched a competition called “Have Your Say” allowing members of the public to vote for how the Society should invest in the people of the area.  The voting options were for organisations that support the community. When the votes were counted it was a draw between Gravesham Sanctuary, who provide help to the homeless, and ourselves Gravesham Repair Café.  Three voters won Amazon vouchers and one individual gained the iPad that was offered as an incentive for people to vote. Both main winners receive a financial award to help sustain their community work over the next three years. Gravesham Repair Café are absolutely delighted to be the recipients of this generous grant from Gravesham Friendly.  This will enable us to expand and consolidate our activities by providing the residents of Gravesham with a service that repairs all manner of items like small domestic electrics, bikes, clocks, tech, clothing and much much more.  Our Repair...

Are you or your children looking forward to the better weather for cycling? Why not get your bike or bikes given the once over by our expert repairers.  It's free of charge after all.   Brakes, tyres, punctures, loose chains, whatever.  Make sure you are safe on the road. The same applies to e-bikes but our insurance does not allow us to work on the electrics.  Sorry - not e-scooters. You know where to find us:  Gravesend, St Georges church hall on the first Thursday of the month and Vigo Village Hall on the second Saturday of the month. see our Calendar

As usual we received quite a number of items for repair. Cassette/radio players, bikes, food mixers, laptop computer, electronic music keyboard, digital radios and more besides.  One of the bikes was donated to us after its service and we'll pass it along to someone in need. One member demonstrated her talents with clay, making pottery key fobs; someone new helped with the tea and biscuits; and two visitors volunteered to return next time and help with the repair work.  An altogether successful day again. This author was so busy mending things there was little time to get photos done.  But here they are: