By Clare Limb

After several months of planning, we finally took our Share and Repair Café on tour to Heanor as part of an event which celebrated all things Making, Doing, Mending and Reinventing, brought together by the fabulous Maison Foo under the banner of Val’s Pals.

The event took place on Heanor Market Place, where we had our very own repair tent, in which we housed our repair team for the day – Clare on sewing, Hazel on darning, James and Steve on general and electrical and Clare and Linda on Reception - as well as displays about what unnecessary waste is doing to the environment (designed as conversation starters with the public). We also had a special guest - Dawn from Wheel Bears – who brought a pop-up teddy bear hospital with her and demonstrated how to bring sad and sorry bears back to life.

All around us was a hive of recycling and upcycling activity, including the Upcycling All Stars, Swanwick Men’s Shed, Val and Trevor’s Community Living Room and ‘Thingamabob’ which was a performance by Matt Pang, containing found objects fashioned into a chain reaction machine, which sent out juggling balls for Matt to do circus tricks with. 

The whole event was brought together by Val and Trevor’s ‘Style Your Neighbour’ Challenge, which was a red-carpet spin off from the amazing podcast which Maison Foo and Listening Shelf Audio have created using light-hearted comedy as well as extracts of interviews with our very own Crich Share and Repairers!