Repair Cafe Odense

Repair Cafe Recap - July 2021

Welcome to our new monthly Repair Café recaps! Every month, you can review the good, the bad, and the ugly of our volunteer work (and don’t worry, we accept it all).

Summer’s in full swing – and it’s hot, hot, hot! That wasn’t a big issue for July 2021’s Repair Café though, which actually saw some wind and rain by our lovely harbor ☔Nothing rained on our parade, though. We had quite a successful day. 

Here are a few stats for you:
July 2021 stats Items seen:

  • A clothes iron (see below)

  • Watch/alarm clock

  • Electric scooter

Items fixed / problem found: 3/3
Success rate: 💯

Woohoo!

Stories from the July Repair Café

One woman came with a malfunctioning clothes iron. We took it apart and investigated the issue.

 

Clothes iron

If we can’t fix your item on the spot, rest assured that’s not the end. In this case, we didn’t have the right component to fix the iron immediately, so with the owner’s go-ahead, we ordered it! She will come to pick it up at August’s Repair Café as good as new. 

Components image

Finally, a woman brought her electric scooter, which had issues with the brakes and Speedometer cable. Our volunteer Dylan adjusted the brakes. We also found out the cable was broken, and since this is a very specific component, we instructed the owner to pick it up at the same shop as she bought the scooter so we can replace it for her next month.
Come with your broken items and get schooled!
Something all repair cafés share is that we’re passionate about sustainability and plain old fixin’ stuff. But you might not know about the educational part of what we do. 
Often, what holds people back from repairing their broken items is simply not knowing where to start. While taking care of the electric scooter, we were able to give its owner some tips for scooter care. While we wait for the part to complete the repair, we hope we empowered her to understand her scooter a little better. If you’re looking to build a closer relationship with your stuff, the user manual is a great way to start!

After all, when we teach people how to fix things – which we hope will create a more sustainable world – all the pieces come together

 

Another person came with a watch/alarm clock that kept resetting for no conceivable reason. We figured out it had a short circuit inside and separated the parts causing the problem to fix the issue! 👍

A special visit…and a change on the horizon?
After Repair Café ended, we had an unusual treat. Julia Wummel, a German grad student who has been researching repair cafés in 3 cities across Denmark, came to present her findings to five of our volunteers. She discussed the surprising diversity of volunteers (nearly equal numbers of Danish and international, as well as male and female volunteers), volunteers’ different reasons for volunteering, and the varying atmospheres among repair cafés. (Read about her interesting findings here)
It gave us an idea… maybe we need to fire up our coffee machine and make it a real café. What do you think? ☕🧩
See you next on Sunday, August 29. Mark your calendars!

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