Today was the Linwood Repair Cafe, run at the Linwood Resource Centre. A number of community groups were involved including
- Linwood Mens Shed – fixing furniture, gluing shoes, repairing toys etc
- ICE Cycles – Inner City East Cycles who fix and provide bicycles for people in Linwood, Woolston, Phillipstown, Brighton, Aranui areas – Bringing cycles to the people (Facebook Link)
- Linwood Resource Centre – filling in forms, setting up email on phones, helping with sewing and jewelery cleaning (Facebook Link)
- Holy Trinity church Ladies – Coffee, tea and home baking. Yum!!!
- Linwood Community Gardens – Providing shade and support and tool sharpening – (Facebook Link)
We estimate over 50 people visited and had things repaired in the 2.5 hours we were open.
What Happened
Eric got stuck into vacuum cleaners early on – turns out HE DOES KNOW HOW TO USE ONE – but don’t tell his wife. Cleaned out some badly clagged up pipes and had them running sweetly again.
Shane got stuck into gluing (and nearly got stuck in glue too – gotta love super glue on hands). Shoes and boots glued back together, kids toys fixed.
Jimmy was the man with his head and hands covered in grease fixing motor mowers. There are also a lot of very sharp tools out there now – the gardens better watch out.
We had some young volunteers who set up emails on phones and helped people with their devices. If you cant get something done on a PC or phone, grab a kid – they seem to be born with one in their hands now days.
ICE Cycles repaired over 20 scooters and bikes. Barings sorted, cables freed, gears adjusted, punctures fixed and bikes tuned. The earth will be a little better off with those bikes working again.
We will upload photos as soon as possible but lastly:
Thank you
A huge THANK YOU to all who helped. Without you we wouldn’t have had the caffeine fuelled, friendly, relaxed neighbourhood event we did. It was awesome. Feed back from people was uniformly positive – and most say they want to see something like this every 2-3 months. Whew – big ask but we will be thinking about it.
