Continued from Transition Sooke News July 2023

Jo Phillips, Paula Johanson, Wendy O’Connor

BACK TO SCHOOL SWAP

Zero Waste Sooke will be continuing its successful Swap series in cooperation with the Sooke branch of Vancouver Island Regional Library.

Coming up on Sunday, August 20 from 11am to 1pm will be our School Supplies Swap! 

Bring your school supplies in good condition that you no longer need, to share. Take home at no cost school supplies that will be useful for you & your family. Students always need pens, pencils, crayons, felt pens, and more. Binders and writing paper are needed! Maybe you have scissors, rulers, and protractors to share, or a pencil bag, lunch kit or backpack. To drop off a box of supplies ahead of time, email  

FIXERS NEEDED

Are you good at mending broken items?  Do you have skills in repairing electronics, wood items, ceramics, clothing, appliances or bikes or in tool sharpening (or anything else)?  

Zero Waste Sooke is looking for volunteer “fixers” for its Repair Cafés, held 3 times a year, usually on a Sunday, in the dining room of the Community Hall from 10-2.  

Repair Cafés are a free event open to the community where folks can bring in broken items and work with a volunteer repair person to see if the items can be fixed instead of landfilled.  These are always fun events.  Coffee and goodies are available for the public and lunch will be provided for the fixers. Things that have been fixed in past ZWS Repair Cafés include: precious toys, lamps, appliances of all sorts, family heirlooms, bikes and clothing. If you are unsure of how you might fit in to the Repair Café you can always work alongside one of our regular fixers 

To explore becoming a fixer, contact Sooke repair café. You can learn more here about Repair Cafés.   

FIXING IS INTERNATIONAL !!!

                                                                                      
A European Repair Café Conference was held online for three hours on July 9, 2023. It was a good collection of presentations in English that helped me put my ideas about our own Repair Cafés in better order in my head. You can watch the recording here 

Though the international effect of these local meetings for people fixing things has spread to every continent, it is still happening in Europe most of all, with over 2,000 Repair Cafés in many European countries and several hundred scattered around the world. Most of these local events are highly practical. Few have political activities associated with them, and those who do focus mostly on supporting ‘Right To Repair’ legislation.  

Two good quotes that stood out are:

• “We want to stop the throw-away society, and for that we need skill and rules to support repair.”
• “To encourage young people to attend, cultivate relationships with other agencies that are youth-centred and encourage families to come.”

What I took from it most of all was the resolution to find out if our events would be served well by getting insurance, and to ask for a copy of a repair café carbon calculator which one presenter has made available for anyone to put on their group’s websites.