community building

The Repair Café

About The Repair Café – Austin/Dripping Springs

History: The Repair Café International Foundation

The Repair Café concept arose in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in 2009, and was formulated by Martine Postma, at the time a journalist and publicist. In 2010, she started the Repair Café International Foundation (see http://repaircafe.org/en). This foundation provides professional support to local groups around the world wishing to start their own Repair Café, such as the Repair Café – Austin/Dripping Springs. The foundation supports the Repair Café at Sententia Vera Cultural Hub.

The Fixer Movement, a mix of Maker and DIY

Repairing is the fourth “R” of environmentalism after Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. This culture is related to the DIY phenomenon, the Maker Movement, and the Collaborative Culture. The fixer movement strives to make throwing things away no longer the norm. “Toss it away? No way!”

This Fixer Culture promotes shared learning and pooling knowledge, promoting the empowerment of people through autonomy and intergenerational exchange.

All Volunteers – Maestro Repairers + Fix-It Students MUST COMPLETE 2 Forms to Participate in The Repair Café

Please read the House Rules Form thoroughly and email the signed form to Sententia Vera, LLC.

The RepairMonitor Form is the registration form that will notify us that you have a Fix-It Project and need to be matched with a Maestro Repairer to learn about a possible repair.

Button links to the forms are below. Email completed forms to info@SententiaVera.com.

The Repair Café is scheduled monthly. Date and Time TBA.

House Rules Form for All Participants
Dripping Springs - The Cultural Hub - Event Venue Space - photo
Cultural Hub Outdoor Venue photo
"I Have a Repair" Registration Form
Voluntary Contribution

The Repair Monitor – Collecting data with the RepairMonitor

A registration form will be used for every repair to collect data via the Repair Café International RepairMonitor central database. This is not only useful for our own Repair Café data collection, but also for the global repair movement.

All data entered on the registration form will be entered into RepairMonitor and stored in one central database. This is constantly analyzed by Repair Café International and partners. This provides important insights such as:

  • Which products do you find most often in the Repair Café?
  • What is needed to repair these products?
  • Why do some repairs succeed and do others fail?
  • Which brands are generally easy to repair?
  • And: which brands should you not buy?

Repair Café International uses these insights in its contacts with manufacturers, politicians, and consumers. We argue for better-designed products, better regulation, and more careful use. Our goal is that we can use products for longer, easy to repair, and repair them better.

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