Thank you for your interest in volunteering to be a Repair Coach. As you know, the Repair Cafe is an all-volunteer, free community event, and no one involved receives any compensation.
What’s involved?
There are really two levels to being a Repair Coach. One is technical: your repair knowledge and ability to troubleshoot what can be done to fix the “beloved but broken” item a person brings to your table. The other is interpersonal and involves communicating and even some teaching.
A good Repair Coach is:
•A curious troubleshooter
•A good listener
•Interested in helping make the repair…but won’t be frustrated if that isn’t reasonable or possible
You will be in good company. There is a remarkable range of skills and talents in our community. I expect you will meet and make some good friends here. You’ll likely collaborate on some of the repairs you undertake. No one expects you to know everything, so feel free to ask another coach to take a look. Two heads are better than one in this business, and it’s more fun! Everyone is sharing, teaching, and learning — on both sides of the table.
We have worktables for our eight “core” categories of repair: Mechanical, Electrical & Electronic; Things Made of Wood; Clothing & Textiles; Jewelry, Dolls & Stuffed Animals; Digital Devices. Many Repair Cafes also offer bicycle repair, knife and tool blade sharpening, and even metal welding.
A common question has to do with tools. We recommend that you bring a few tools that you like and find particularly useful for your repair category. Tools are also often shared among our repair coaches. Some of the guys and gals bring a pretty good selection, so if you haven’t got something, ask around to see who else might have just what you need to complete the repair. We have a “general supply box” of things for your safety and use: a basic first aid kit, protective eye goggles, heavy-duty paper towels, cloth rags, sandpaper, wood shims, heavy-duty rubber bands, “clamp tape,” carpenter’s wood glue and epoxys, rubbing alcohol, Q-tips, WD-40, contact cleaner, and a box-tray of screws and nails in a variety of sizes. (See Appendix 2 for a complete suggested list.)
At Repair Cafe we only “stock” basic lamp parts: sockets (several types), plugs, and wire (white and brown). It is a great help to customers to be able to identify the exact parts needed for their repairs; we love to send our customers to the local hardware store with a broken part or part description to say: “Repair Cafe sent me!” We value our relationship with our local hardware stores.
Some of our coaches are also true professionals who run repair businesses. We invite them to display their business cards. People sometimes bring items that cannot be reasonably fixed within the scope of the Repair Cafe (i.e., parts are needed or it would take too much time). These cases are your judgment call, and you can invite people to bring their items to you on another day at your normal rate of compensation.
A note about liability — every person who brings an item to you for repair will have signed this statement: If you offer items for repair, you do so at your own risk. Neither the organizers of the Repair Cafe, the sponsors, nor the repair persons are liable for any physical damage or loss resulting from work performed at the Repair Cafe. Persons making repairs offer no guarantees.
Once you’ve had the experience of fixing things for people you don’t even know, we hope you’ll want to come back for more! We have found that the level of gratification is very high on both sides of the table. Our goal is to run the Repair Cafe in a way that makes you feel appreciated and keeps you happy. We honor your knowledge and value your time.
The Repair Cafe is “open” for three or four hours — times vary at each community. It’s good to arrive a half hour to twenty minutes ahead of opening to help set up your workstation. But you are not obligated to stay for the whole time if your schedule doesn’t permit it. We say: come when you can, leave when you must.
Lastly, you will see that we put out a donation jar. The donated money, typically about one hundred dollars per event, goes for pizza (snacks and beverages are always free of charge to volunteers) and miscellaneous expenses, with the balance donated to the host organization, food pantry, or other local charity.
Please don’t hesitate to call or email me with any questions. Our website calendar is always up-to-date at repaircafexxx.org. We invite you to like and follow our Facebook page: Repair Café–XXX. We are also active on Instagram.
Best,
[Organizer’s name, email address, and phone number]