The recent rain storms truly energized Pasadenans.  We expected a poor turnout for the Repair Café on March 1 during the day of cloudbursts, but about 60 folks showed up and about 45 repairs were done.  New tinkers were welcomed with challenging projects, the tailor team was humming, and a new addition was the bike repairs by Jonathan.  Three bikes were tuned up!

Many guests had the opportunity to share the awe of the two grand ravens who have built a very large nest in the Throop Church belfry.  Their presence is as thrilling as the rain. The patrons and the ravens alike were serenaded by David and Daniel and Shakurra.  Many seeds and seedlings, worms and compost, and freshly picked avocados and lemons found new homes.  We are continually surprised at what Repair Care reveals: the sense of abundance, people sharing their own paths to consciousness about the need for alternate economies, and the bliss of the unexpected like ravens and vocalists, the miracle packed in a seed and the glee felt by the repair folks when they have fixed something for a new friend.

Repair Café at Pasadena Earth and Arts Festival 2014

Next up, Repair Café has been challenged by the Earth and Arts Festival to go ’off-the-grid‘!  Our own tinker team is up to the challenge!  Mark your calendars for May 3 in Memorial Park, 11am to 5 pm.  We will have a team of two tinkers and  two tailors on solar powered machines and bike repair!  Cycle on down!

To volunteer for a two or three hour shift as tinker, tailor, triage, or other, contact me.

— Therese Brummel

The Repair Cafe itself broke all our records!  We had 200 visitors and 71 documented repairs.  Repairers included a crew from Hack a Day who love the thrill of taking your clunker appliance  apart and making it a working vacuum or curling iron.  There was bad-haircut repair and worm bin repair, sewing repairs,  Mac trouble shooting, tool repair and sharpening, seed swap and free seedlings as well as the biggest Really Really Free Market ever and a big load of citrus to give away.  Thanks to all who helped make this our most wonderful event from fruit packers to piano player and vocalist, to triage people keeping the flow of repairs smooth and efficient.

March Repair Café

The next Repair Cafe will be March 1 from 3-6 pm at Throop Hall at Los Robles and Del Mar. Stay tuned to our web page or facebook page or the Time Bank google group for more details!
Would you like to try out the thrill ride of doing repairs of some kind?  Our repair people leave the event high on the happiness of helping each other.  To offer repairs contact [email protected].

Come on down and get a fix!

— Therese Brummel

Repair Café this past month was definitely a three bell alarm at the old firehouse, now Alkebulan ( an old name for Africa) Cultural Center.

The goodies, free to all, were so wonderful.  Martin, a Repair Café regular gratefully gave a new home to Mike's old computer, freshly cleaned and loaded with updated programs, bells and whistles, from the Really, Really Free Market.  Someone else walked away in a classic pewter-colored, new-looking, top-of-the-line London Fog full-length coat.  The Neighborhood Fruit Harvest had an abundance of juicing oranges and luscious persimmons.  Lucky folks also left with sweet potato seedlings and pretty flower bulbs and holiday decorations.

And that was only the outdoor event!
 
Inside, we incorporated a new system of triage that worked like a charm!  67 repairs were completed by 18 repair people: 6 tinkers, 5 tailors, and 7 specialty repairers including gluing, woodworking, knife sharpening, jewelry repair, lamp repair, hair repair, Mac consultations, and a word smith, Beatrice, who worked feverishly on a resume, as David tickled the ivories. Whew!
 
Two folks whom I chatted with asked if there was any garden project they could engage with.  YES!  Connection made.  One fellow with an ingenious solar program asked to share his idea.  YES!  One plumbing expert asked if there was a way for him to connect with the group next time.  YES!  Several folks asked if they could apply for Time Bank today.  YES!  Alkebulan Center asked if we would come to their place so they could invite their community next time.  YES!
 
The best part about Repair Café is seeing folks meeting new friends.  Greg likes to tell folks who sit down to learn knife sharpening that they are sitting in the story chair.  Life is a story unfolding.  We share our own stories and create new stories together about a new kind of economy based on our interconnectedness which values sharing, gifting and earth itself as the basis for the new economy, our Sacred Economy as Charles Eisenstein refers to it.  This is one path toward visioning a new and better life ahead.
 
Kudos to all who contributed to this new economy, sharing time and talent and engaging in a new story.

— Therese Brummel

Transition Pasadena, Arroyo Food Co-op, Arroyo Time Bank, and curious neighbors all gathered for a wild Repair Café!

Saturday evening, just before the blazing sun began to set, 16 repair people set up shop inside and outside the Arroyo Food Co-op store. They came with tables, chairs, soldering guns, tiny pliers, satchels of glues, sewing machines, a massage chair, iced tea and ice cream to share, passion fruit, buckets of tangelos and oranges to give away, and chalk for the kids to draw on the pavement with. The store was packed with people infected with the contagion of abundance, sharing, and the good feelings they bring.

There is a sense for me now, that this event has a life of its own.  As usual, about three people who had planned to come had to drop out, and as if on cue, three unexpected repair people showed up. There is something bigger than the sum of the parts at work here. 

The event was scheduled until 9.  At 8:20, I asked the very capable triage team how it was going. Yvonne said we may not get to all our jobs – there were 59 on her list, and we were up to about number 35! At 8:45, a woman from the neighborhood entered agog with the buzz in the room. She asked if there was someone who could look at her vacuum, which was in the car.  Yvonne said, oh, I don't know, our list of jobs is long and we may not get to them all. She was a bit deflated, but the excitement in the elbow-to-elbow crowded room brightened her smile.

Just then, Ai returned to the triage table with the word that there was a tinker without a job!  “Bring it in now!” the woman, Carla, was told. So she rushed to her car and returned with the vacuum. It seemed like five minutes and the vacuum was repaired! She asked if she could bring in a lamp from her car, and triage said that the lamp repair person, Shakurra, was just packing up to go home, so hurry! Carla quickly returned – with the biggest lamp I have ever seen, a curvy heavy ceramic vase as tall as herself! Everyone in the room began to laugh with delight at the challenge this latecomer had brought. Shakurra (who was laughing the hardest) took a quick look and immediately diagnosed the problem. Done by 9 pm!

Photo finish!  All 60 items attended to!

A wild ending to the most exciting Repair Café yet!

—Therese Brummel

We had several tinkers, tailors, paper shredder, knife station, and a table with Carter Wallace from Institute for Urban Ecology. There were approximately 40 attendees and 40 repairs that day.

A popular fun station was Don’s “Repair Your Hair” station, where he did haircut touch-ups and trims. One fellow brought a pair of pants with a zipper problem that Mary fixed in a jiffy. Then he noticed the Hair Repair. When he realized that it was also free he signed up for that, then he took a garden tour with January. After he sampled the potluck array and some of Wafic’s iced tea, he looked delighted and a little incredulous to learn that he was also welcome to help himself to the huge pile of citrus from the Neighborhood Fruit Harvest. He checked out the Seed and Seedling Swap and left with a big smile, repaired trousers, a dapper new hair repair, some fruit, and a seedling.

He also left with a new understanding, a first hand experience of the sense of abundance that can thrive even without money. It is the acknowledgement that wealth can be found in many ways.

If you have experienced this feeling and want to pay it forward, consider volunteering for Repair Café as a repair person or a staff triage person.

Thanks all who turned out to share skills and to all the patrons who came to sample the benefits of an alternate sharing economy and time banking.

— Therese Brummel

A recent phone interview by a Stanford University post-doc asked me to answer deeper and deeper questions on the foundations and motivations of the work we all contribute to Repair Café, tinkers, tailors, organizers and participants.

I answered the top layers easily: raising zero waste consciousness, decreasing the landfill, decreasing consumerism. I proudly spouted some permaculture principles. She was researching and writing on Maker Culture primarily based on sharing hardware and software in the computer world. She was hunting for tendrils of linkage to the growing world of volunteer repair people who were sharing skills not related to cyberspace.

Then she took me to another level beneath those answers and I heard myself talking about  sharing skills, sharing friendship, finding abundance locally, building community, healing the earth. She was a sociologist so I felt comfort discussing this level with her.

The Earth and Arts Festival Repair Café was a big success thanks to everyone who participated with good cheer and great talents!  It was fun to have some of you onstage for the award presentation.  Congrats to us all!

The number of repairs was not large, but the number of conversations and the wonderful exposure for this project was huge!  Not only for this project, but for Time Banking, Sharing Economy, NELA Transition, Zero Waste, Fruit Picking Project, climate change and more!

Thanks to each tinker, tailor and talker!!

— Therese Brummel

The October Repair Café was not only a rousing success, but a barrel of fun, as new friendships were forged!

The repairs included appliances, a sewing machine, knives sharpened, jewelry repairs and polishing, and some basic sewing. We had visitors from Transition groups in Culver City and San Fernando who were amazed by the vibrancy of this event!

The three Really Really Free Market tables overflowed with items! Many people went home extremely happy with new clothing, new reading material, office supplies, speakers, etc. — but the happiest was the recipient of a microwave oven!

Many enjoyed some of the harvest of the Arroyo Time Bank's Fruit Picking Project: fresh oranges! Some were gifted to Throop Church members, and the still leftover oranges made their way to the Union Station Homeless Shelter. Abundance is palpable!

The potluck food was so delicious and mostly vegan. Ryan's raw-cashew cream strawberry pie won my award! About eight folks attended a Time Bank intro class, and the grand finale was Don Warriner's presentation on How To Make a Solar Oven. The oven was made from cardboard boxes, aluminum foil, tiles, a cookie cooling rack, and bubble wrap, and less than $10 to make!

— Therese Brummel