September at the Repair Café

in Publicity / Photos

We were back at Tregony Village Hall on Saturday 26th September after the August break. On the tables this month were a DVD player, a lawnmower, clothes needing mending and several household appliances.

The DVD player and a Bose speaker were both repaired. A kettle had its latch fixed, a vacuum cleaner needed a replacement pipe, and a stuck vacuum filter was freed. The air fryer turned out to need its timer set before it would switch on—no repair needed for that one.

An iPod seated in a Bose speaker dock on the table

The Bose speaker, repaired at September’s café.

At the sewing table, holes were mended in two children’s jackets, including one with a dinosaur pattern. A pink top had marks covered with appliqué, the binding on a post bag was restitched, and a gun case got a new zip.

Hands guiding white fabric beneath a sewing machine’s illuminated needle area

Mending under way at the sewing table.

There were unfinished jobs too. The lawnmower was missing a part, a radio needs to come back with its aerial, and we couldn’t fix the toaster. We found a workaround for a trackpad rather than a repair, and gave advice on a computer performance problem. The Xbox controller’s repair still needs confirming.

A vintage tabletop radio with a cream grille and tuning scale

A vintage radio brought along in September.

We also successfully demonstrated Tregony Village Hall’s A3 printer-scanner, printing upscaled archival photographs of an army regiment and ancestors of one of our repairers.

Three versions of a family group portrait: original upper left, upscaled monochrome upper right, and colourised version below.

A repairer’s ancestral family photograph: original, upscaled and colourised, using OpenAI’s GPT 6 Astra. The added colours are an interpretation, not a record of the original colours.

The book swap filled the stage with books, puzzles and DVDs to browse.

We were also pleased to welcome two new volunteers: a repairer and a general volunteer.

Thanks to everyone who brought something in, and to the volunteers who helped with repairs, refreshments and welcoming visitors.

We’ll be back on Saturday 24th October, 1–3pm, at Tregony Village Hall. If you have something that needs fixing, bring it along. We can’t promise a repair, but we’ll take a look.