cambridge repair cafe – New in Cambridge

Staying Home in Cambridge 3

Well, we’re now in Week 7 of lockdown and while there are glimmers of light at the end of the tunnel, life as we knew it still seems a million miles away (or at least it does to me!). I’ve put together here an eclectic selection of good Cambridge things that are happening online as well as in real life, to help keep us going through these difficult and tedious lockdown days.

Cambridge Cookery School salad — Image credit: Cambridge Cookery School

Cambridge Cookery School is now open for take out from Thursday to Sunday (including this Bank Holiday Friday) from 9am – 1pm. You’ll find Tine’s beautiful fresh, healthy salads, sandwiches, cakes, breads and coffee. And now, Inder (of Inder’s Kitchen) will be cooking fresh curries for take away as well as marinated uncooked dishes ready for the barbecue plus you can pick up a bottle of wine (the white and rose will be chilled and ready to open, of course!). There’s plenty of safe social distancing queue space on the terrace and lawn but don’t leave it too late in the day … last weekend was a sell out!

We’re open

Sara Rawlinson St John's College Library — Image credit: Sara Rawlinson

Sara Rawlinson has created a virtual exhibition of her Illuminating Cambridge Libraries series on her website. Over the past 2.5 years, Sara has photographed one library from each of the 31 colleges of the University of Cambridge and she plans to show her work in a big exhibition when life returns to normal. In the meantime, take a look at her stunning photographs online, where you can also buy her fine-art prints.

Illuminating Cambridge Libraries – virtual exhibition (2019)

Virginia Woolf — Image credit: Literature Cambridge

Literature Cambridge is offering a new series of Online Study Sessions, starting on 9 May and continuing through the summer, giving us a chance to study literature in depth with leading scholars. Each session will have a lecture followed by a seminar and will focus on a single work or author.

https://www.literaturecambridge.co.uk/

Image credit: Full Circle Shop

Full Circle Shop is operating from its shop at 9 Norfolk Street, open Monday – Saturday 2pm – 5pm. The stall on Cambridge Market is closed for now. They’re offering a Click and Collect service and a plastic free delivery service to postcodes CB1 – 5, Histon, Impington and Cottenham. Check out their website for vegetable and herb plants, food, lifestyle and cleaning products as well as personal care items.

https://fullcircleshop.co.uk/

Cambridge Virtual Repair Cafe — Image credit: Circular Cambridge

Circular Cambridge is running a series of Virtual Repair Cafes, happening weekly in May on Wednesday lunchtimes. An experienced Cambridge Repair Cafe repairer will look at your broken item over Zoom. This is a free event but spaces are limited so prior booking is required.

Repair Cafés

The Fitzwilliam Museum has launched a community textile project to create a large patchwork hanging inspired by art and objects in the Museum Collection, with instructive videos by textile designers and “how to” information packs.

Facebook: @fitzeducation

Wisteria in Cambridge

And finally, although we are in lockdown, they can’t cancel wisteria hysteria season here in Cambridge! Wherever you are in the world, I hope that you, your families and friends are keeping safe and well x

Cambridge Remakery

Now here’s a fantastic one-stop-shop for everybody who’s working to shrink their waste, reduce their carbon footprint and live more sustainably. Cambridge Remakery is popping up in the new community space at The Grafton Centre over the weekend of 12 and 13 October and you’ll find plenty of help, advice and free activities here.

A Repair Cafe for electrical items, toys, clothing, bicycles etc.

Hands on workshops for bike maintenance, furniture repair, upholstery and jewellery repair

An upcycling activity with recycling advice and a bird feeder upcycling project for children

A Swish ... bring clothes you don’t wear and swap them for clothes you will wear at this women’s clothes swapping party

A sewing skillshare where you’ll pick up tips and acquire new sewing skills

A craftivism workshop on 13 October with an artist from Kettle’s Yard. Bring along a T shirt, scarf, jumper or bag on which to emblazon your own environmental message

One-to-one advice on living more sustainably from Cambridge Carbon Footprint and Transition Cambridge

Sustainable living stalls from The Nu Wardrobe, a clothes sharing social network, and Full Circle Shop, Cambridge’s own zero waste shop

Full Circle Shop stall — Image credit: Full Circle Shop

Remakery projects are now established and flourishing in Brixton and Edinburgh with more in the pipeline for the UK and internationally. Wouldn’t it be brilliant if the Cambridge Remakery became a permanent hub to support us all as we work to live more sustainably??

http://www.circularcambridge.org/events/the-cambridge-remakery

http://www.remakery.org

http://www.remade.network

http://www.thenuwardrobe.com

http://www.fullcircleshop.co.uk

The Grafton Centre, Cambridge CB1 1PS

Full Circle Shop Cambridge

Zero waste shopping has come to Cambridge, brought to us by Full Circle Shop, the brainchild of Johanna, Emma and Paul, three friends who bonded over their mutual love of our planet. When they couldn’t find an eco shop in the city, the ecologist, the bioinformatician and the engineer put their heads together and decided to start one themselves. Product ranges include items that are plastic free, reusable, sustainable, ethical and free from animal products.

They’ve been selling from their stall on Cambridge Market since the end of last year and you’ll find them there on Monday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Full Circle Shop also pops up at repair cafes and community markets around Cambridge and they’re looking forward to being part of local summer events like Strawberry Fair and Arbury Carnival, where they’ll be helping with eco friendly activities in the Kids Zone.

Full Circle Shop Cambridge

So what will you find at Full Circle Shop? Several brands of soap, deodorant and solid shampoos, including a range from Cambridge’s own Zero Waste Path Shop, toothpaste, Dent tabs, bamboo toothbrushes and shaving kits.

Full Circle Shop Cambridge

Laundry needs are well catered for with soapnut shells and I love the Guppyfriend Washing Bag, a clever invention that prevents plastic fibres from getting into the water via your washing machine. Add in soy wax reusable wraps, bamboo straws and cutlery, insulated reusable drinks cups and the prettiest upcycled fabric wrap and it’s easy to see how making a few simple changes can help us move to a lower impact lifestyle and tread a little more lightly on our planet.

Full Circle Shop Cambridge

Full Circle Shop is also a member of Terracycle so you can drop off your empty crisp and biscuit packets, toothpaste tubes and used plastic toothbrushes for recycling.

Emma, Paul and Johanna have big plans for the future. They’d like to supply wholefoods such as lentils, pulses, beans, nuts, dried fruit, flour, grains, oils and vinegars so customers can refill their own containers. Full Circle Shop is currently crowdfunding with a target of £13,000 so they can invest in food stock, dispensers and a food storage facility as well as developing their website for online sales. Achieving a stretch target of £21,000 would enable the team to be mobile across Cambridgeshire, bringing their shop out in an electric van so customers can buy and collect orders without coming in to the city.

Full Circle Shop Cambridge

Emma tells me, “We’ve received such positive feedback for Full Circle Shop. People really want to make a change.” For more on Full Circle Shop’s ethos and product lines as well as their future plans and their crowdfunder, which runs until 17 April, take a look at the website.

http://www.fullcircleshop.co.uk

Cambridge Repair Cafe Plus

We’ve all got them … those slightly sorry, broken objects stuffed into the cupboard under the stairs. You think you’ll get round to sorting them out one day. Or if you’re not handy (like us here at New in Cambridge!), you try to find someone who can fix these things then realise that the humongous repair bill means that it probably makes more sense to chuck said objects out and buy new. But for Cambridgeshire dwellers, there is a better way.

The Royston Repair Cafe inspired Cambridge Carbon Footprint and Transition Cambridge to kickstart the Cambridgeshire repair cafe movement about four years ago, to help reduce waste and promote skill sharing in a socially welcoming environment. Fifteen groups now run repair cafes across the county and last year, Cambridge hosted the world’s biggest repair cafe, comfortably smashing the world record for the number of repairs made.

There’s a Cambridge Repair Cafe Plus happening on Saturday 22 September at St. Andrew’s Hall, Chesterton, from 1 – 4pm. It’s a simple system. A whole range of experienced repairers volunteer their time and skills to fix all sorts of items from electricals to jewellery and bikes to books. You either pre-book or just turn up (in which case there might be a short wait) with your object for repair. There is no charge for mending things but donations are always welcome and Cambridge Carbon Footprint is grateful to Mackays and Draper Tools who sponsor and supply the tools used by the repairers. Most things can be fixed but for the 15% of items that can’t, they’ll advise you on recycling and disposal.

You’ll also find a sewing repairs skillshare. Here you can learn basic sewing skills like hemming, darning and sewing on buttons that mean you can make simple repairs yourself in future. And if you’ve got any unfinished sewing or knitting projects hanging around, they’ll help you get to grips with those too.

There’s a draught proofing and repairs workshop with information on how to make your home cosier and cut your bills plus they’ll give you a free draught proofing pack to take away. Perfect now that there’s definitely an autumnal nip in the air!

Cambridge Kids' Repair Cafe — Image credit: Cambridge Carbon Footprint

For the younger generation, there’s going to be a Kids’ Repair Cafe on Friday 26 October from 9.30am- 12.30pm. It’s hosted by the Cambridge Film Festival at Arts Picturehouse and they’ll be screening environmental films including WALL-E through the day. Children can bring consoles, mechanical toys, gaming devices, electronic toys, teddie and dolls. As with all repair cafes, kids and their parent or carer stay with the repairers, using the process as a learning experience and helping to work out the best way to repair the broken toy.

I enjoyed meeting Nicole Barton, Volunteer and Events Organiser at Cambridge Carbon Footprint, to find out more about the repair cafes before writing this post. As she says, we talk about throwing things away but where is “away”? Nicole’s a woman with a lot of amazing statistics at her fingertips but one in particular blew my mind …..

….. if you repair a 13″ Macbook rather than chuck it out and buy a new one, you save the equivalent of 750kg of carbon

I’ll leave you with that thought!

http://www.cambridgecarbonfootprint.org

http://www.transitioncambridge.org

http://www.circularcambridge.org

St Andrew’s Hall, Chesterton, CB4 1DH

What’s on in September

Well, now we’re in to those last days of the summer holidays, there’s a distinctly autumnal nip in the air most mornings and a sort of back-to-school feeling, even for those of us who left school many moons ago. Maybe it’s better thought of as a time for new beginnings! Here’s the what’s on listing for September. There’s plenty happening in the city and I’ll update through the month so do check back when you can.

All Saints Garden Cambridge — All Saints Garden

1st 12 – 4.30pm Medieval Fair. Leper Chapel, Newmarket Road CB5. Free event. http://www.cambridgeppf.org

1 – 30th Cambridge Festival of Cycling. Celebrating the city’s cycling culture. http://www.cambridgefestivalofcycling.org Read more here

1 – 2nd Oktoberfest Beer Festival, Jesus Green CB5. http://www.cambridge-oktoberfest.co.uk

1 – 2nd Taste of Anatolia. Films from Turkey. Facebook: tasteofanatolia

8th 9.30am – 2pm Queen Edith’s Share Fair and Skip Day. Wulfstan Way shops, Wulfstan Way CB1. Pop up moneyless market to swap and share clothes, games, books, stories, skills, home grown fruit, veg, flowers and more. http://www.queen-ediths.info/event/8sept2018

8th 10am – 5pm Cambridge Dragon Boat Festival. River Cam, Ditton Meadows, Fen Ditton CB5. http://www.cambridgebid.co.uk/events/dragon-boat-festival Read more here

9th From 8.30am Bridge the Gap. Depart from Parker’s Piece CB1. A circular walk through the gardens of six Cambridge colleges, raising money for Arthur Rank Hospice Charity and Romsey Mill. http://www.arhc.org.uk/bridge-the-gap.asp Read more here

9th 3 – 5pm Jazz on Jesus Green CB5. The Alley Cats with saxophonist Alan Barnes. Free entry. http://www.cambridgelivetrust.co.uk/city-events/events/jazz-and-brass-parks

11 – 29th fig-futures. A month of free performances, installations, film screenings and talks. Kettle’s Yard, Castle Street CB3. http://www.kettlesyard.co.uk

14 – 15th Open Cambridge. http://www.opencambridge.cam.ac.uk

15th 9.30am – 4pm Madingley Hall Local Food Fair, Madingley Hall CB23. Pop up Farmers’ Market showcasing local artisan food and produce. Free entry. http://www.madingleyhall.co.uk/events/local-food-fair

15th 10am – 4pm Cambridge Buddhist Centre Open Day. Tours, talks, meditation sessions and “Human Touch” photography exhibition. 38 Newmarket Road CB5. http://www.cambridgebuddhistcentre.com

15th 10am – 5pm All Saints’ Church, Jesus Lane CB5. Tours, history zone, quiz, textiles talk, organ recital, refreshments. Free admission.

15th 11am – 5pm Reading Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own”. Literature Cambridge study day. Stapleford Granary, Cambridge CB22. http://www.literaturecambridge.co.uk/room-2018 Read more here

15th 1pm Phoenix Vocal Ensemble. Mozart, Faure and Bruckner. Great St Mary’s Church CB2. Free admission.

15th 7.30pm O Quam Gloriosum. Music for the saints by Tomas Luis de Victoria. De Profundis, Cambridge’s all male early music vocal ensemble. Jesus College Chapel CB5. Tickets on the door or from bit.ly/DPSaints

15 – 16th 10am – 5pm Cambridge Food, Garden and Produce Festival. Parker’s Piece CB1. Free entry. http://www.oakleighfairs.co.uk

21 – 29th 10.30am – 5pm Cambridge Original Printmakers Biennale. Pitt Building, Trumpington Street CB2. Free entry. http://www.cambridgeoriginalprintmakers.com Read more here

22nd 1 – 4pm Cambridge Repair Cafe Plus. St Andrew’s, Chesterton CB4 http://www.cambridgecarbonfootprint.org Read more here

22nd 7.30pm The Academy of Great St Mary’s Orchestra. Wagner, Brahms and Dvorak. Great St Mary’s Church CB2. http://www.adcticketing.com

23rd 10.30am – noon Baby and Children’s Market. Nearly new sales of kids’ stuff. Cambridge Regional College CB4. http://www.babyandchildrensmarket.co.uk

23rd 10.30am – 5pm Milton Country Park Autumn Festival. Milton, Cambridge CB24. http://www.miltoncountrypark.org/autumnfestival PLEASE NOTE THIS EVENT HAS NOW BEEN RESCHEDULED FOR 7 OCTOBER DUE TO ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS

25 – 27th Sorted! Festival. To celebrate the opening of Rising Path. Cambridge University Botanic Garden, Brookside CB2 http://www.botanic.cam.ac.uk

27 – 30th Inspire Cambridge. Home interest show. Quy Mill Hotel, Cambridge CB25. http://www.inspireshows.co.uk/cambridge.html

28 – 29th LifeLab Celebrate science and join LifeLab investigators in events and activities exploring the latest breakthroughs and discoveries www.camlifelab.co.uk

28 – 30th Cambridge Art Fair. Quy Mill Hotel, Cambridge CB25. http://www.cambridgeartfair.com

30th Open Eco Homes. Ten eco homes in and around Cambridge open for householder led tours. There’s a repeat of this event on 6th October. Free but advance booking is essential. www.openecohomes.org

30th 7.30pm East Anglian Chamber Orchestra. Mozart, Strauss and Sibelius. West Road Concert Hall CB3. http://www.adcticketing.com