Interviewer: My guest today is Isla Brennan, who started the Northgate Repair Café two years ago. Welcome, Isla.
Isla: Thanks for inviting me.
Interviewer: So, how did it all begin?
Isla: Well, it started with a toaster, believe it or not. My flatmate's toaster stopped working, and she just put it in the bin. I took it out again, because I was sure it could be fixed. I'm not an engineer or anything, I work in a bank, but I watched a few videos online, and it turned out to be a loose wire. It took me ten minutes. I was so annoyed that something almost new nearly ended up as rubbish, and I thought: there must be lots of people throwing things away just because they don't know how to repair them.
Interviewer: And so you organised an event.
Isla: Yes. I booked a room at the community centre for one Saturday and put up some posters. I was worried that nobody would come. In fact, about thirty people turned up with broken things, which was more or less what I'd hoped for. What I really didn't expect was that so many of them offered to help. By the end of the day I had a list of fifteen people who wanted to come back as volunteers.
Interviewer: Who are these volunteers?
Isla: All sorts. Some people imagine they're all retired engineers, but actually we've got students, a hairdresser, a couple of teachers. Nobody gets paid. They just enjoy it. And what they like best is when a visitor sits down next to them and learns how to do the repair. We don't want to be a free repair shop. The idea is that people go home able to fix the next thing on their own.
Interviewer: What kind of things do people bring?
Isla: We see a lot of clothes that need a new button or zip, and bikes with flat tyres, especially in summer. But the thing that comes through the door more than anything else is small kitchen equipment. Kettles, coffee machines, toasters, of course!
Interviewer: Is the café doing well?
Isla: Very well, in a way. We get enough donations to pay for tools and the room, so money isn't a worry. And we've got more volunteers than we need on most days. The trouble is the room itself. It's simply too small now. Some Saturdays there's a queue outside the door, and people have to wait an hour. We're looking for somewhere larger at the moment.
Interviewer: Finally, what would you say to someone who wants to start a repair café in their own town?
Isla: Don't try to do everything at once. Some people want to open every week from the beginning, with a big website and lots of equipment, and then they get tired and give up. Begin with one event, see who comes, and let it grow little by little. That's what worked for us.
Interviewer: Isla Brennan, thank you very much.
