Sustainable Blewbury Repair Café, Sunday 15th September
This was our 15th Repair Café. The weather was fine, and we had a lot of grateful customers. We had a lot of customers for sharpening, and our volunteer specialists also repaired several bikes, clothing, a sewing machine, a table, radios … and a stone cutter. Repair Cafes are free, but customers usually give donations which cover the hire of the Village Hall and Vale Room. This time there was more than £40 surplus so that will go towards the expenses of our upcoming program of speakers. Details of the programme will be in the next SB Newsletters and elsewhere. The next Repair Café is on November 17th – put it in your diary
Why do we hold Repair Cafes?
For sustainability: The repaired items are reused rather than replaced, which minimises use of valuable resources, and as customers watch the repairs being done they often learn how to do them themselves, but please avoid putting yourself into danger.
Keeping warm this winter.
The consumer organisation Which? has tested and compared store-bought vs DIY draught excluders to see how much cold breeze they let in, and their results showed that best draught excluder for your front door won’t cost you a penny! They compared four popular shop-bought draught excluders for front doors with two homemade versions they’d seen recommended online. You can read their results in their magazine or online (for free!) Their tests showed that a rolled up towel was better than any of the shop bought ones (brush, rubber or cloth), and that the other often recommended home-made version (tights stuffed with rolled-up newspaper) was by far the worst option. The advantage of brush or rubber draught excluders are that they are screwed to the door, while all the others must be put back into position every time the door is opened.
Which? has also tested loft and wall insulation. Jo Lakeland