What a fantastic afternoon of fixing we had in our new Balham venue – St Mary’s Church.
Our trusty fixers tackled coffee machines and grinders, toasters, amplifiers, radios, hedge trimmers and even a keyboard!
Check out these fantastic pictures of some of the day’s successful fixes….
We were especially thrilled as three new fixers joined us to help out and we enjoyed lots of great conversation over tea and cake thanks to our new host Paula!
We’d particularly like to thank Berni Excell and all at St Mary’s who made us so welcome at this, our first event in Balham. We hope to alternate our sessions between Tooting and Balham from now on, extending our efforts to keep local e-waste out of landfill and giving broken objects a new lease of life!
Thank you to Stuart who helped me with my laptop and ps4 – unfortunately both need replacement parts so couldn’t get them entirely fixed today, but I feel much more confident in opening them back up and replacing the broken parts now, and I now know which parts I need and how to install them. This is a really great initiative!
Keep an eye out on ourShare & Repair Page and our Facebookpage for booking details of our upcoming sessions on 16th July and 24th September!
He was so interested in the way the PlayStation was being taken apart. I loved seeing him asking questions and trying to understand the whole process. He had fun and even made a friend.
Our aims are to celebrate local fixing and mending wherever it is happening, promote local repair businesses and support sharing and repairing events building on our pre-covid Restart/Sewstart sessions.
Our first activity, as we emerged from lockdown in early July, was to stage the first ever Tooting Repair Week! We received funding for the project from the national Transition Bounce Forward programme and we’re were thrilled to team up with Jeni and Gemma atMeet & Make Spaces who co-ordinated the programme of events. We were particularly grateful for our many collaborators and supporters including Tooting Market, Mushkil Aasaan, BJ Hardware, Oasis Charity Shops, Woodfield Pavilion, Mrs Trindle and Furzedown Primary School.
We hosted the first in-person Restart Party in London in 18 months! With 5 fixers we tackled over 20 fixes ranging from a toy to a coffee machine, a food processor to a shower radio. We were also joined by two representatives of Glen Dimplex Consumer Products (brands including Roberts Radio and Morphy Richards) who are exploring how they can build products that last better and are more repairable. Our next Restart party will be on 30th October.
Our final session was an online Green Drinks session focused on how we can be more sustainable with our stuff and do more locally to limit waste. We heard from Joe Duggan of the fantastic Library of Things who are on a mission to make borrowing better than buying – for people & planet (They’ve recently opened up in Merton – how about a Tooting branch?) and Ian Mather from Restart Project who help people learn how to repair broken electronics and rethink how they consume them in the first place. WATCH A RECORDING of the session here.
What’s next?
Coming up in the Autumn is Tooting RepairFest from 23 – 31st October and an exhibition of local photography celebrating the expertise of our local fixers and menders!
Let’s make Tooting a hub of sharing, fixing and mending!
We’ve been running fixing and mending workshops in Tooting for nearly four years now with the help of the Restart Project and their team of volunteer fixers.
Our amazing volunteers have fixed everyday items like irons, hairdryers, kettles and toasters and made repairs to trousers, dresses, rucksacks and bags. We’ve even tackled more unusual challenges like industrial food mixers, portable amplifiers, toy dogs and even a drone. During those years we have saved tonnes of electrical and electronic objects from landfill.
In the last year or so we’ve seen a huge increase in the number of people bringing items to be fixed – perhaps because of an upsurge in awareness of environmental issues and the need to reduce our consumption and waste. We’d love to grow our group of regular volunteers so if you’re already a keen fixer – or you would love to learn more – do come along and find out more!
We will be holding regular fixing parties in early 2020 – see dates below. At our February workshop we will have a special focus on computers. If you have a problem with your computer or if your computer has become too slow and can’t be used for much we’re happy to try and assist by either trying to fix it or make it a bit faster by installing another operating system.
Upcoming Restart Parties: 1st February – 1.30 – 4.30pm 28th March – 1.30 – 4.30pm CANCELLED 16th May – 1.30 – 4.30pm
at Mushkil Aasaan, 220 – 222 Upper Tooting Road, SW17 7EW (next to Nando’s)
Do remember that our Restart Parties are a community self-repair space where you take responsibility for your own gadgets and data, so please don’t forget to take any back-ups beforehand, if relevant – and if possible arrive during the first two hours to allow time for fixing!
More info about Restart including details of regular skillshares at www.therestartproject.org
Our regular fixing and mending workshop – Restart/Sewstart – has been getting more and more popular lately.
Whether it’s broken electrical or electronic items that people don’t want to throw away – a favourite bit of clothing or a bags that needs altering or mending – or a sewing machine that someone isn’t sure how to use – more and more people are keen to fix things rather than throw them away. Our September session had more than twice as many objects bought along to fix – check out all the happy people who were helped out by our volunteers!
But our growing popularity means we need more local fixers!
We’d love to find more people locally who’d like to join in. Do you know someone who loves tinkering with things and making them work again? Or someone who is handy with a sewing machine or a needle and thread and would be happy to share their skills?
Do encourage them to come along and say hello at our next session or email us for more information transitiontowntooting@gmail.com
13.30 – 16.30 on 30th November Mushkil Aasaan, 220 – 222 Upper Tooting Road, SW17 7EW (next to Nando’s)
We get lots of support from our partners The Restart Party with online resources and workshops – and we offer lots of thanks and cups of tea and biscuits on the day!
Restart Parties are a community self-repair space where you take responsibility for your own gadgets and data, so please don’t forget to take any back-ups beforehand, if relevant – and if possible arrive during the first two hours to allow time for fixing!
More info about Restart including details of regular skillshares at www,therestartproject.org) More about Transition at www.transtiontowntooting.org, on twitter @tttooting or email us at transitiontowntooting@gmail.com
Well done to media mogul Mal for getting some photos sent over in the nick of time featuring the Community Garden, Tooting Twirl and Foodival. The article also references our regular Restart repair cafes. The online version HEREhas a great photo from last month’s Foodival courtesy I think of Franco Ruarte. Other TTT pics are featured in the paper version above. Thanks to Simon Maggs, Jenny Teasdale, Bryony Williams and David Thorne for these!
Rob is running an event at Batersea Arts Centre with help from TTT’s Lucy Neal entitled Pop-Up Tomorrow (click thru for tickets) which invites you to “step into an imagined future to collectively vision, playfully build and then physically inhabit a 3D vision of a Zero Carbon Britain in 2030”. Meanwhile don’t forget tonight’s talk with Resina and Belinda on Ecobricking at Tooting Green Drinks. All welcome to the Selkirk Pub SW17 0ES for 7.30pm
Help us break the myth that things can’t be fixed! Do you have broken electrical or electronic items that you don’t want to throw away? Or a favourite piece of clothing that needs mending or altering? Check out these happy fixers from our last session in May – who mended a pancake maker, a rucksack and a handheld vacuum cleaner!
Maybe you’re already great at fixing and mending stuff – or you’d like to learn how? We have a great and growing groups of local fixers working together to solve problems and sort out fixes…
Mike says: “We help fix, show how to fix and expel the myth that things can’t be fixed. Throwing away electronics as soon as they don’t work anymore is a mind-set that needs to be changed. And I can see from my involvement in Restart, that there are lots of community-minded people starting to change their opinions on how they view tech.”
Or maybe you fancy a cup of tea, a piece of cake and a chance to find out more about Transition Tooting and what we get up to? Come along between 13.30 – 16.30 on 6th July 7th Sept 9th Nov Mushkil Aasaan, 220 – 222 Upper Tooting Road, SW17 7EW (next to Nando’s)
(Restart Parties are a community self-repair space where you take responsibility for your own gadgets and data, so please don’t forget to take any back-ups beforehand, if relevant – and if possible arrive during the first two hours to allow time for fixing! More info about Restart including details of regular skillshares at www.therestartproject.org)
Join this month’s Restart / Sewstart fixing and mending workshop on Saturday 18th May from 1.30pm to 4.30pm. As usual our volunteer fixers will be doing their best to fix your broken electrical or electronic items and importantly keep them out of landfill. Meanwhile on the Sewstart table you might get some help mending or altering a favourite piece of clothing. If you are already great at fixing and mending stuff why not join our growing group of local fixers?
It is of course perfectly fine just to come along to see what’s happening, enjoy a cup of tea, a piece of cake or find out more about Transition Tooting. Venue: Mushkil Aasaan, 220 – 222 Upper Tooting Road, SW17 7EW (next to Nando’s)
Do remember that Restart Parties are a community self-repair space where you take responsibility for your own gadgets and data, so please don’t forget to take any back-ups beforehand, if relevant – and if possible arrive during the first two hours to allow time for fixing!
More info about Restart including details of regular skillshares at www.therestartproject.org
And further Tooting Restart dates for your diary this year are: 6th July, 7th Sept & 9th Nov
Our next Restart Party in Tooting is at Mushkil Aasaan this coming Saturday 8th December, 13.30-16.30. At this event, as ever, you can bring in broken electronics and see if our team of volunteer fixers can give them a new lease of life or at least identify the problem. The ethos behind our Restart parties is to keep items out of landfill by repairing and re-using. It’s an antidote to the throw away culture that can sometimes prevail.
Mending Toys Too! Just in time for Christmas this event also includes toy mending. Why buy yet more new stuff when we could help you to repair some old things that you or your family love? Dig those cherished broken items out of the bottom of the cupboard and bring them along. What better gift than a surprise repair for the kids? Our Supermen (and Superwomen) fixers will do our best to make them good as new!
And our usual reminder … Restart Parties are a community self-repair space where you take responsibility for your own gadgets and data, so please don’t forget to take any back-ups beforehand, if relevant – and if possible arrive during the first two hours to allow time for fixing! More info about the Restart Project here
This afternoon’s Restart & Sewstart event saw a lot of smiling faces both on the Fixed It List and in the hall. Thanks to everyone who helped out and attended!
While fixers battled to fix seemingly broken radios, lamps, toasters and phones, Shaz and her able helpers reupholstered a sofa that had been dumped in the street. Check out the time lapse video of the work!
Phew, that’s better!
At our events we aim to keep electrical or electronic items out of landfil by repairing them, and also mend and alter old clothing to give it a new lease of life. If you are just curious or would like to learn new skills come along to one of our Restart Parties
Our next Restart Party in Tooting is at Mushkil Aasaan on 8th December 13.30 – 16.30 and will include toy-mending as well – watch this space!
Restart Parties are a community self-repair space where you take responsibility for your own gadgets and data, so please don’t forget to take any back-ups beforehand, if relevant – and if possible arrive during the first two hours to allow time for fixing! More info about Restart including details of regular skillshares at www.therestartproject.org
Don’t forget more upcoming dates for you diary: Local Stories of Sustainability Success is on Saturday October 20th and the start of a new series of Carbon Conversations on November 1st.
