But first, what happened in November?
On Saturday, 26th November, was the much anticipated first edition of the Slough Repair Café. After visiting the succesful Repair café in Maidenhead, the society decided to set it up in Slough. In one way, this was easy because we could copy what Maidenhead was already doing. On the other hand, we started from nothing, so we needed a venue, funding and volunteers.
The Queensmere shopping centre was very kind in letting us use its venue. At first, we were supposed to be in the former B&M store, but that venue is rented out to a new tenant. Thanks to Eva, we did the Repair Café in The Artful Hub. And the market and workshop were in the indoor square in front of the former B&M store.
The funding comes from The National Lottery Community Fund and OneSlough Community Fund. With this money, we could buy materials such as a PAT tester and train our volunteers to use it. We also got tables, chairs, and equipment for the café to give the visitors complimentary tea and coffee.
With the help of Slough CVS, Slough Borough Council and Facebook advertising, we recruited the volunteers. We were so pleased with the results: ten volunteer fixers/ hosts signed up, and seven could make it on the day. But then, a little over a week before the event, we only had four items signed up to be repaired! So we did another call out on social media and Whats App groups to ensure that our volunteers would be busy enough on the day.
In the end, we needn’t have worried because 16 items were brought in. And our volunteers were able to look at and analyse all of them. Most were repaired, some were at the end of their life and some needed specialised tools. In the last case, visitors were invited to come back next time. All in all, a very successful first edition, and we will only grow to make it bigger and better.
To gain more publicity and visitors for the repair café, we combined it with the anti-litter market and upcycling fabric workshop.
At the market sellers sell their secondhand items to declutter, make some profit and keep things out of the landfill. The first edition of the anti-litter market was in January, and we were keen on doing it again. So this was the perfect opportunity, there were twenty sellers on the day, and it really created a buzz!
We also ran an upcycling with fabric paint workshop the same day. Children brought old clothes and made them into artworks using fabric paint. The results were amazing!
Please join me in thanking all our amazing volunteers who made the day such as success! The fixers (Jon, Phil, Keith, Bob), hosts (Jillian, Lynn, Sat), creatives (Paula, Justyna), coordinators (Darren, Bal), event manager (Tirza) and photographer (Nikita). Events like this can only be organised because of the hard work of volunteers. A special thanks to Gabi and Claire from Repair Café Maidenhead who helped on the day and made sure our first Repair Café ran smoothly.
Have a look at some of the pictures taken by Nikita. We hope you will be there (again) next time. We will do it all again on Saturday, 28 January so start collecting items you want to sell or upcycle and items that need to be repaired!
The link to buy tickets for the market and/or get a free ticket for the repair café:
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And what are we going to do in December?
On Saturday 10 december we litter pick in Upton Court Park with members of the Christ Embassy Church. If you want to join you are very welcome. We do not know the start time yet so keep an eye on social media or send an email and we will let you know.
Did you know that Santa likes to go litter picking in his spare time? We have an opportunity for you and your family to help him! We are going to litter pick with Santa in Foxborough on Sunday 11 December. The meeting point is Byron Centre at 13:00. Don’t forget to wear your Santa hat!
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We hope to see you there!
If we don’t speak to you anymore before the end of the year, have a great holiday season and happy new year! The planning for 2023 is already done and we can’t wait to share it with you in January.
On behalf of the committee,
Thank you for your support and we will see you soon!
Tirza
Who are we?
Slough Anti Litter Society is a community group with the aim of making Slough a better and cleaner place. We organise regular events, our motto is Be the change that you want to see in Slough.
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