Miriam Thomas is hoping to open Honiton's first Repair Café, and she has now secured a venue. However, volunteers are still very much needed!

The Honiton Repair Café is part of a community initiative group started by Miriam, called the Honiton Community Action Group . The aim is to bring local residents together to help deal with waste and environmental issues.

A Repair Café is a place where people can take their broken or damaged items, such as clothes, bikes or electrical goods, and volunteer repairs help fix them.

The idea is to fix things rather than buying new, therefore reducing waste (and saving people's money!) Miriam told Nub News about the philosophy behind her café: "Many local towns and villages have successful repair cafes: they act as community hubs, and we exchange skills and talent, which we all have, and we're rewarded with improved health and wellbeing. "Recycling, reusing, and repairing items is so important on so many levels. We only have this planet; each individual can do something to protect and preserve it. "By doing something as simple as getting items fixed instead of throwing them away and buying new, we can all help our children and grandchildren, inherit a cleaner, more sustainable planet." The Café will run once a month, on a Saturday morning between 9.30am – 1pm. Miriam has secured the Community Use Building (CUB) for the café. The Repair Café is looking for local residents with various skills during the Repair Cafe meetings, including people who are handy with clothing/textiles, electrical appliances, IT, bicycles, furniture/wooden objects, sharpening garden tools. Volunteers are also needed to provide tea and coffee, meet people arriving at the café, build websites and help create a social media presence. If you would like more information, or you would like to volunteer, you can contact Miriam on 01404 45073 or [email protected].