From the Chair of Haringey Fixers
This is the Haringey Fixers second Annual Review, so covers our 2nd financial year, 1st Sept 2023 – 31st August 2024
Membership of Haringey Fixers is free and open to all. Members appoint Trustees, tasking them with meeting our charitable purposes voted for by members themselves and outlined in detail in our Governing Document:
The protection and preservation of the environment for the public benefit by:
a) The promotion of repair and re-use to the people of the London Borough of Haringey
b) Advancing the education of the public about all aspects of repair and re-use.
The way we govern ourselves is laid out in our Governance pages
By voting to accept this report, you are accepting the strategy that the Trustees seek your approval for. By voting at the AGM, members are giving consent for the Trustees to follow the direction set out here and in the strategy.
This report it is issued in enough time before the event for members to put their own ideas and strategies forward. As members you have the right to have them put to the vote.
Overview
Over this second year we have grown in experience and effectiveness – something we can all be proud of. We hired our first part-time employee. This has all been made possible by volunteers – people who have stepped forward in a wide range of roles, from helping each other fix broken stuff to working on the back office and volunteering as Trustees.
Funding
We obtained funding from the North London Waste Authority (NLWA) for a part time (15 hrs\week)Operations person for a year.
We formed an interview of group of repairers and found an excellent candidate in Aurea Falcao who started in March 2024. Aurea did a great job for us for a year until the funding ran out – NLWA were not able to renew funding for the same work twice.
Aurea helped with the many tasks we cannot attract volunteers to help with (yet)s. Mainly that’s helping grow the community and being on hand at the events to do the ‘processing’ and collect the data. We succeeded in freeing the trustees to do more strategic work, resulting in the opening of two new Repair Cafes this year, All Good in April 2024 and Campsbourne in November 2024.
Spreading the word
From our first year, we realised that advertisements for repairers would lead to non-repairers realising that there were Repair CafĂ©s in Haringey and book in an item. IOW we found it unnecessary to advertise for âbringersâ (people who bring stuff in for help fixing).
After years of posts, mainly on Facebook with event listings on Harringayonline.com, Haringey bringers know by now what we do.
We match the demand for help with the help avaialble to us, so almost every event has a happy balance of bringers and helpers.
So we limit advertising to the continuous search for âfixersâ – repairers without whom nothing gets fixed. Bringers see our calls for volunteers and repairers realise that they can bring stuff to us.
We are always on the lookout for new organisers, local people who will accept the responsibility of holding Repair Cafés in community venues. We aim to support them to be as self-sufficient as possible.
This tactic has paid off – early in 2024 we were approached by the wonderful people who run the marvellous All Good Bookshop in Turnpike Lane. Our discussions led to ‘All Good’, our third Repair CafĂ©, opening there in April 2024 and going from strength to strength on the second Sunday of each month 2-5pm.
Our increasingly good word-of-mouth reputation created by happy bringers meant we were again approached by local people wanting to make a difference. That led to the opening of our fourth Repair CafĂ© at Campsbourne in November 2024 which continues to open on the second Saturday of each month at 1pm. Our Operations person Aurea helped free up the Trustees to make it happen – we really could do with more paid help.
Future finances
We are beginning to need money to continue operations. Most of all we need help with the internal admin of supporting our organisers, helping record the data at events and acting ‘behind the scenes’ replying to emails and monitoring social media. We have consistently been unable to find people to help, but slowly they are stepping forward to fulfil this vital function.
My fund-raising efforts at the end of year one resulted in being able to employ a part time person to help but I was not able to secure funds to continue employing someone for more than that.
It is a slow process – the big funders generally require applications at least four months before needing the grant, so no quick wins.
The aim was to hire someone to do the work we have no volunteers for, so that the Trustees could help in other more suitable ways: act as Trustees not simply event helpers.
For example, your Trustees are always on the lookout for a new venue. We need to find at least two local people who can share the work of organising their local event, eventually becoming Trustees themselves. The venue needs storage space for the tools and materials.
A funding issue is, if we depend on funds and canât raise them, thatâs a hole we dug ourselves. If we obtain funds and can’t renew them, we risk taking one step forward and one back.
By keeping the barriers to entry low, we enable more venues. By the year end, we were almost ready to open a new venue, Campsbourne, which held it’s first Repair CafĂ© in November 2024
Final word
Our future is bright, we are strong, resilient and act appropriately.
Chris Setz 31st Jul 2025