Celebrate the Repair Cafe LB's first birthday on March 23rd

Over 385kg of waste prevented from going to landfill and over 2002 kilograms of CO2 emissions prevented (using the Fixometer provided by the Restart Project), the Repair Cafe volunteers have looked at over 323 of which 173 have been fixed and another 82 deemed repairable. Our collective impact as a group is the equivalent of growing 33 seedlings for ten years.

Alongside these tangible and measurable figures, the Repair Cafe LB volunteers have also had an impact in lots of less tangible ways by bringing happiness and satisfaction to have practical and treasured possessions restored.

Edwina Osborne, the founder of Totally Leighton Buzzard and the Repair Cafe says: "We are super proud as a group for a successful first year helping people from across the local community to repair their broken items. Our aim is simple to help reduce waste, save money and share skills. Its been a joy to watch people's treasured items being repaired whether that's modern day lamps or toasters or more heritage heirlooms such as an old 1950's film projection camera or an old Essex sewing machine".

In the word of Jay Blades MBE, 'There is a loneliness in our society. There's a remoteness that's coming with the rise of social media and technology. But there's also a renaissance. There is a call to arms from communities joining together to say, no, we're going to keep connecting through creativity and craft".

We are proud as a group of volunteers to be part of this creative renaissance built on connection and sharing skills.

To mark our first year as a group, the Repair Cafe LB would love to welcome as many of you who are interested to our regular monthly repair event which will run from 10.30am to 1.30pm at our new venue at the Royal British Legion on West Street, Leighton Buzzard. We will be joined by Digital Champion, Guy Sloggett who will be providing free digital advice and by Leighton Buzz Cycles who will providing bike repairs.

The event will be followed at 1.30pm by our first ever Annual General Meeting. After the essentials, we will mark this with some food and drinks and also an exclusive showing of "The Last Repair Shop", the 2024 Oscar winning Documentary Short Film.

We will also be officially launching our campaign to open a Library of Things and invite all local people to let us know what items they would like to see on a 'library of things' wish list.

You can find out more about Totally Leighton Buzzard including dates for future Repair Café events and access our ‘library of things’ video and wish list survey which we encourage everyone to complete at: https://linktr.ee/leightonbuzzard. We would love your views on what you want to see from a Library of Things!