Volunteers from various Repair Cafés have written a document full of ideas for organising safe repair events during the coronacrisis. This document is available for download here:
Thanks for this document - very easy to read with some great ideas and thought prompters. Much appreciated. michelle australia
Thank you for your summary of ideas for continuing Repair Cafe activities during the pandemic.
We have several ideas that have worked with individual members of our Maker Space which recently closed due to loss of funding due to the pandemic. In person sessions were often arranged as Repair Cafes, now we are trying:
- Scheduled virtual drop-in hours. This arrangement worked for several years when a small business was purchased by peer company across the country. For blocks of time advertised in advance a crew of people will be on a web meeting (happens to be Zoom) and assist those who come on with problems. With the paid version of Zoom, we can put people in breakout sessions.
- Use Zoom or other web tools to create an assisted virtual repair session longer than the breakout sessions above. This is mainly for Light EVs (ebikes, escooters, Segway minis, etc) and Light EV batteries, where the person with item to be repaired shows us what they see and how they are proceeding to repair or diagnose problems. Setting a time limit requires some negotiations, and often the person with the problem requires tools that they do not have. We have asked people to buy inexpensive special tools, and do warn in advance about that. If a part is needed, we refer to a source as there are no regional repair centers for any of the above not on a factory warranty.
- For those whose problem is larger than can be handled by either of the above approaches, we do refer to local shops or individuals who will either assist or for a fee can acquire new parts for the person. Then it is up to them to rejoin a virtual Repair Cafe session to complete their repair, or hire the specialist.
Do you all have any further suggestions on expanding upon Virtaual Repair Cafe sessions (VRC?).
Best, Mark