A new community-led initiative to help people in the Teversal area mend broken possessions has got off to a successful start.

Teversal Repair Café hosted its first event at Teversal Visitors Centre, with plenty of visitors taking along items for repair by volunteers — and a second meeting is planned for April.

Clothing, cushion covers, an electric sander, treasured clock, and kitchen weighing scales were all repaired, and many kitchen knives sharpened.

Further items that need extra work were taken away by volunteers to repair at their homes.

Teversal Repair Café organiser Geoff Snare said: “For our first event, we could not have had a better start, with lots of visitors bringing a wide variety of items for repair — more than 20 in total.

“Our volunteer repairers were kept busy all morning and most visitors went away satisfied. Unfortunately, we could not repair every single item, but we always explain why something can not be repaired.”

Repair cafés, a worldwide programme, were launched because organisers realised people throw away things with almost nothing wrong with them and which could get a new lease of life.

They offer a friendly and social meeting place, open to all, where hand-portable, broken, damaged, or torn personal possessions are repaired or mended.

All items are repaired free of charge, apart from the cost of replacement parts, but donations are always welcome.

Debbie Halfpenny, co-ordinator at Teversal Visitors Centre, was very happy with the additional visitors that came to the centre.

“We were delighted to be asked to support and host Teversal Repair Café,” she said.

“It will provide a great service to the local community and reinforces our commitment to maximising reuse, and reducing waste. It is a great concept and has our full support.”

Teversal Repair Café is a joint initiative between Teversal, Stanton Hill and Skegby Neighbourhood Forum and Teversal Visitors Centre, and is a member of the worldwide Repair Café International organisation.

Repair cafés began in the Netherlands in 2009 and there are now more than 2,500 repair cafés throughout the world, with over 400 in the UK alone.

The next Teversal Repair Café is on Saturday, 5th April, from 10am to 1pm, at Teversal Visitors Centre.

To find out more, go to www.teversalrepaircafe.org.uk or find the project on Facebook by searching for TeversalRepairCafe.

The project is looking for more volunteer repairers. If you can spare a few hours of your time on a Saturday morning, go to the volunteer page on the website or contact the café via Facebook.

For more information on repair cafés, go to https://communityrepairnetwork.org.uk