Read all about Tooting Repair Club launch, Repair Week 2025 and Leaping out of Windows without fear from local fixer Dermot – and email us at repairclub.org@gmail.com or visit the Tooting Repair Club web page to hear about future sessions.
The first rule of Repair Club is: “You do not talk about Repair Club”
So like an ancient mariner of fixing…here I am – a week later and still buzzing from an energised evening in Tooting launching tooting Repair Club, as an official partner of Repair Week. And very happy to talk about it.
First of all: it was an absolute blast to spend an evening with people either already in the repair world, or peeking into it curiously.
Oh, but I’m jumping ahead. Many of you will have heard of repair cafes – there’s over 2,500 of these community ‘bring and fix’ groups worldwide – but Repair Clubs? Probably not. Until last week there were just three of them, all in North London. And now the new kid, Tooting Repair Club, makes it a total of four!
What’s a Repair Club? It’s not really defined: and it’s kinda up to each club to decide for itself. Broadly speaking it’s a place for habitual fixers to meet, share and develop skills, drink tea, eat the occasional pizza, and of course fix stuff. All in a social setting. There’s probably training too. They’re a not-too-far-distant relative of Mens Sheds, Stitch and Bitch or the Hacker/Makerspace movements.
As Tooting Repair Club is brand new I’m not going to presume to define it – its personality will emerge over time, formed from the people who join and drive it. So I’m going to return to the night in question: Wednesday 5th March 2025, after a beautiful – almost t-shirt weather – late Winter’s day.
In the midst of a cluster of curious people – ranging from students to the long-retired – I’m dispensing some easy repair tips as if they’re magic tricks. I’m aware of more people coming through the front door and small groups of people gathered in animated conversations spread across the room. We’re slightly swept off our feet: pleasantly surprised by the popularity of event. Guests have arrived even before opening time, and we’ve not finished setting up the activities…but the core team is riding the wave and going with the flow. I have a sense of the energy in the room, but can only catch a fraction of the conversations. This of course makes me an unreliable teller of this tale…however I’ll try to give a snapshot of what I’m seeing.
TThere’s so much curiosity in the room. Curiosity seems endemic to fixers: and along with dogged determination is one of the core characteristics needed to repair things nowadays. We live in the information age, yet there’s never been less sharing of information by manufacturers of the workings of our everyday gadgets; a key resource that would open up millions of repairs.
A young journalism student – Will Harris from City News – is coming down to record a radio piece. He’s touring a few Repair Week events for this assignment. I notice someone arriving from the corner of my eye; something about his presence tells me this is Will – but for once at a repair event he’s not the only young person in the room. I peel off from the group and head over to greet him.
But I should have introduced you to where we are: as I said, my script is out the window, so forgive this, but it’s not too late. We’re gathered in Mushkil Aasaan’s community hub in Upper Tooting Road: guests of this renowned local charity started by a group of muslim women, that supports families, and also generously opens their centre to a broad spectrum of community activities. Mushkil Aasaan could be described as the spiritual home of community repair in Tooting. It’s where we held our first Tooting Restart Parties back in 2014 – a decade ago – and this lends extra resonance to tonight’s session
A decade on and the change in attitudes to repair – and depth of knowledge of our guests – is palpable. Back in 2014 you would have to constantly explain what a repair cafe is, and I’m not sure any of us fixers had yet heard the expression “Right to Repair”. We also struggled to get people through the door. Now our visitors flood in, preloaded: they know the landscape, they’re acutely aware that our stuff all seem to break long before its time – built-in obsolescence is ingrained in their consciousness.
Where was I? Oh yes, chatting to Will the journalist. He seems quick witted and professional, and forgives my bad jokes. After a couple of questions I’m pleased he’s done his homework on the subject – these are better questions than some of the BBC interviews I’ve done…but we’re not going there right now.
I’m in First Rule of Repair Club mode, and Will is making it easy to eulogise Repair Week and community repair, and express some of my views about the state of manufacturing of our stuff…
Chatting with Will has given me a chance to pause and reflect on what I’ve heard tonight and who’s in the room: from intern, to home maker, to retired sound recordist. Maybe repair skills are not just a niche for tinkerers and those prepping for the zombie apocalypse, perhaps they’re essential life skills? Wouldn’t every home benefit from having someone who can wire a plug, data-wipe a gadget, or persuade a toaster to hold down toast?
Back in the room tea is being brought round and a huge mound of locally made samosas is being wafted under our noses – it’s after sunset during Ramadan, and I momentarily wonder if they taste even better when you’ve fasted all day? But in front of me a group has gathered around the solder station, and it’s my pleasure to guide them through a taster session of the essential repair skill of electronics soldering. I’m impressed how quickly they’re able to pick it up, and we’re getting some high quality solder joints…but our full soldering workshop is over four hours, so I try to temper expectations and guide them to further studies, and practice! I note that there’s a high proportion of younger women in the room: smashing norms in both the tech and community repair worlds.
I told you about the first rule of Repair Club, and tonight we have a one-off second one: no fixing(!). A very tough one for fixers to agree on. We see a broken thing and are viscerally drawn to fix it. But Garry – who’s now doing the ‘magic tricks’ – was clear: if we end up fixing things all the taster sessions and engagement opportunities will get shelved. Broken items would be Kyrptonite. Garry had a solution: “We just won’t have the tools on site – then we can’t fix”. A hard choice but this is a taster and engagement session, and we need to be aware of our capacity.
Did I say Kryptonite? I meant catnip…
It’s a good plan, and we have a list of future repair cafes and pro repair businesses on hand to direct people to…
But, like many good plans, this simply crumbles in the face of a broken and needy item in the arms of a bringer (‘bringer’ is the popular term for people who come to repair cafes).
And who ends up doing the bulk of repairs that evening? Yep, Garry: he finds a Leatherman multitool (a kind of industrial grade Swiss army knife) had stowed-away in his pocket, enabling him to carry out a range of repairs…so it seems there is no such thing as a ‘get out of fixing card’.
I’m not sure what’s getting fixed. I glimpse a table lamp, and some small hinged boxes? But I need to stay focused on the task at hand, I need to keep myself well upwind of that catnip..
As I said, we’re largely on an engagement and fact finding mission this evening (now with Garry temporarily down, caught up in fixing), and delighted to see roughly twenty new faces along with some of our old friends. Hilary is facilitating the give and gain walls with a plan for some breakout discussions later (we never get to them) – sharpies and post-its abound. She’s also testing the water with Tooting Repair Rooms – our mid-term goal to create a permanent repair hub in Tooting. The idea goes down well: long-time fixing friend Shaz describes it as “the natural evolution for repair in Tooting”, and this seems to get nods all round.
You can tell that many different roads have led people to Repair Club tonight: some just need a thing fixed, some are looking to be part of the repair revolution, others have deep skills they want to share – there’s a strong climate and environmental vibe – and all think something has to change. These are future origin stories: important strands in the tale that’s told when we look back on this throwaway age from the vantage point of a fully fixable world. If we decide that’s our future it needn’t be far distant either. I might even live to see it.
There’s an underlying pang for an all but lost world of quality: clothes that have a future as vintage, appliances that last decades rather than barely making it past the retirement age of their one year warranty. Quality products are in living memory, and of course still around us: Kenwood Chefs (the Galápagos tortoises of kitchen islands), vintage Hoovers still in use by elderly relatives, and being built today: the Dualit Classic toaster. A stainless steel tank of an appliance – perhaps designed to survive a nuclear Armageddon and supply toast for that zombie apocalypse – assuming the survivor generation is one that’s got some basic repair skills.
Oh, did I drop some teaser about leaping out of windows in the title – is that what’s kept you reading? The wait is over…
Leaping out of Windows (10) – less scary than you think
On October 14th this year the axe could be falling on 240m non-upgradeable Windows computers when Microsoft ends support for Windows 10.
Absorb that for a moment…240 million laptops, desktops and tablets potentially on the scrap heap.
A terrific sales opportunity – salesperson of the month trophy makers will be working overtime.
A disaster for the planet. All leave will be cancelled at the electronics crushing and grinding plant for the foreseeable future.
(note to self: startup idea #113. Salesperson of the month trophies made from repurposed Windows 10 laptop parts! #circularity)
But there’s a way out – and Mike’s at a table towards the back, near where the samosa mound has come to rest, live-demonstrating just how painless it is.
The solution – putting Linux Mint on your device – is simple and has many benefits: it’s free, it’ll speed up your computer, and for many of us it’ll deliver everything we need – some users might need to stay on Windows (not all external hardware is supported on Linux) – but software wise there’s not much you can’t achieve on Linux nowadays. We’re looking into running some sessions just for this. It feels like an urgent problem, but one with a solution…yet a solution that’s either not known about or misunderstood as highly technical.
The crowd has thinned a little – a bunch of us are reading the give and gain walls out loud. We reflect that there’s a very high match of skills needed to those offered, just amongst the thirty or so people in the room! From PAT testing to 3d printing via zip replacement and making tea.
And then, seemingly in the snap of fingers, three hours have passed and it’s time to close the Repair Club…phew!
It’s after 9pm, and we need to load the van and shift the tables. We’re tired but wired: Julie is firing on all cylinders, making mental connections, linking ideas, turning challenges into possibilities. And the most common question we all heard: “when’s the next one?”. It feels like we’ve really started something here – some brains won’t be switching off for hours, mine included.
We had a buzzing evening, with dozens of interesting, interested people. Ideas flying around the room. We sensed that we’re at a tipping point in community repair, and that there’s an appetite from an enlightened section of the public to get stuck into the next phase. We’ve taken away a bunch of suggestions and ideas, and now need to organise and find venues. We’ll be back very soon with some more Tooting Repair Club dates!
After this first session an image is starting to form around what Tooting Repair Club might be. Come join us and add your DNA to the mix, or perhaps get together in your area and form the fifth ever Repair Club (you might have to be quick though).
From the evidence above you’re probably convinced that I am the ancient mariner of maintenance and repair – a steam iron hanging by its frayed and gnarly cord round my neck, words flowing like an electrical short circuit. Yet on some level I just want to shut up and help fix things. To stop me talking just waft a misbehaving item in my peripheral vision. But someone’s got to say this stuff and in spite of the fun and social aspects of Repair Club, we’re operating in a safety-critical environment, and rules is rules, and I’ve agreed to abide by them. So until the first rule changes you’ll be hearing plenty more from me…
One final thing: if you’ve gotten this far and found something that chimed with you, then I encourage you to honour the first rule, and tell at least one other person about something about Repair Club.
Dermot
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or visit The Tooting Repair Club web page
