Tag Archives: Right to repair

“Compassion makes us civilized” — interview with SIRCH Repair Cafe volunteer Lynda Shephard

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Lynda Shephard is busier than ever in retirement. She has taken on a few volunteer roles with SIRCH Community Services, supporting the work of the social services agency in the Haliburton community. She also chairs a local charitable organization that provides community and a healing space for people living with cancer.

Today, Lynda will greet many of the 44 people who come through the doors of the SIRCH Repair Café, bringing with them items in need of TLC such as clothing, furniture, electronics, jewelry, bikes, ceramics and more. After directing a new group towards the registration table, Lynda takes a few minutes to share more about her role and philosophy of volunteering.

How do you describe your role here at the Repair Café.

I am a greeter and jack of all trades. When people come in with their items to be repaired, I want to make them feel comfortable. I chat with them and let them know about the process. I show them to the registration table. I may speak with them when they are in the waiting area, to find out more. Sometimes there are bigger issues than the object they have brought in for repair. One senior shared with me that she was struggling at home with things like yard maintenance. I was able to provide a local contact to enable her to get some assistance.

Do you have a guiding principle in your life and volunteer work?

When the anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked the question: “What was the earliest sign of civilization?”, her student expected her to say a clay pot, a grinding stone or maybe a weapon.

Mead thought for a moment and said, “A healed femur.” The femur is the longest bone in the body, linking the hip to the knee. It usually takes six weeks of rest to heal. A healed femur shows that someone cared for the injured person — hunting, gathering and staying with them.

The first sign of civilization is compassion. This idea that kindness, care and compassion makes us civilized resonates with me.  I also come by volunteering honestly – my dad was a Rotarian and both of my parents always helped others.

Can you tell us more about your roles with SIRCH?

Besides the Repair Café, I volunteer at the SIRCH Thrift Warehouse. I am responsible for curating books, organizing them into categories like fiction, biography, gardening, decorating etc. – to make it easier for patrons to find the books they want. There is a nice connection with the Repair Café, because some items repaired by our fixers are sold at the thrift store, with proceeds to SIRCH.

As today’s Repair Café winds down, Lynda gives well wishes to some of the departing guests. In her professional life, Lynda played a senior role in leadership development with the provincial government, with a focus on best practices and new ideas. She brings those skills to her many volunteer roles in retirement – along with the responsibility she feels to care for others.

For more information on the cancer retreat Lynda chairs, visit brooksong.ca

For more information on Haliburton’s SIRCH Community Services and its amazing Repair Cafe, visit sirch.on.ca

Skill and intuition: meet SIRCH Repair Café fixer Michael Kursbatt

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Michael Kursbatt’s introduction to electronics pre-dates the era of solid state. In his early teens, the Haliburton retiree built a vacuum tube stereo and enjoyed music played on vinyl records.

After studying electronics in college, he kept up with the rapid evolution of the field in his professional life. At the Bell Computer Communication Group, he worked with teams who installed data transmission systems and modernized communication networks.

Michael now brings his systems savvy to volunteer roles. Today, he joins about a dozen volunteers at Haliburton’s SIRCH Repair Café to fix a variety of items ranging from electronics to clothing and jewelry. We caught up with Michael when he was disassembling a broken heating pad.

What’s the lowdown on this heating pad you’ve taken apart today? It looks like you are doing detective work.

I started by checking the condition of the plug and power cord, then checked the fuse and circuit continuity. The tests point to a problem inside the pad. There may be a broken connection or a burned-out element.

I’ve seen you here fixing everything from bikes to electronics and even a bedside clock. What is your approach as a fixer?

Part of it is your physical skills with your hands and tools. The main element is using your knowledge and experience to discover the source of a problem. That’s the fun part.

Finally, it requires intuition. There are some cases where an item can be repaired and used for many more years. In other cases, you may need to think about the quality of the item, the time and cost to repair it, and even factors like safety. Is this item worth repairing? I enjoy working through those questions and meeting many great people who visit our Repair Café.

Can you tell us about another recent repair and how it went?

One of our recent guests brought in her mom’s broken Dirt Devil vacuum cleaner. We got it apart. In this case, the good news was the discovery of a replaceable worn shaft and drive belt. Our guest was well-informed and prepared to order and install the replacement parts herself, and I was happy to lend a hand.

Manufacturers don’t always make it easy to disassemble their products, but we’re persistent and often succeed in restoring unusable items back into service.   

Michael uses a pair of scissors to cut open a portion of the heating pad’s fabric. Sure enough, inside the pad his excision reveals a broken wire connecting to the heating element. That’s a safety code issue, so Michael recommends retiring and replacing this heating pad. He explains the situation to the pad’s owner, who agrees it is time for a new one.

No bell tolls for this particular repair opportunity, but by the end of the day, Michael and his fellow volunteers will have repaired over 50 items — some of them functional, others sentimental, all of them given a new lease on life. Every time an item is repaired, a bell rings and folks pause to applaud.

Toss it? No way!

For more information on SIRCH Community Services, please visit: sirch.on.ca

The co-operative crafter — Interview with Michelle Anton

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Michelle Anton is finishing up a repair to a ceramic cookie jar lid at the SIRCH Repair Cafe in Haliburton. Just then, another visitor arrives with a 1940s-era gravy boat from her parents’ wedding china set — along with its broken handle. Michelle uses a similar approach to each repair – cleaning the breaks with alcohol, and applying a thin layer of clear Gorilla-brand glue to the broken pieces. She lets the glue set for a few minutes, carefully re-sets the pieces, and tapes them to apply pressure. We asked Michelle – a high-school teacher by profession — to share more about her approach to the potter’s craft and volunteer roles.

What’s your biggest reward as a fixer?

What I do here often allows people to keep a sentimental object – it may be a family heirloom. Now they can continue to enjoy it, and perhaps display it or use it again once it is repaired. That’s a good feeling.

Where did you learn pottery?

When my youngest son was 12, I was looking for programs that might keep him busy in the summer. We were living in Toronto and I found a local pottery studio that offered children’s classes. I enrolled my son and offered to help out with the class.

It turned out it wasn’t a great fit for my son, but I really got into it. The teacher was a nun, Sister Helen. I helped her, and I also learned from her. I started to make my own pots and obtained my first potter’s wheel and kiln. I enjoy making bowls of brown clay with carved lines and glazing.

How would you describe your approach to pottery?

Most important for me is taking a cooperative approach. To help the community, I organized an event recently called Empty Bowls. We had local potters make bowls, and 12 local restaurants make soup. Participants chose a bowl to sample the soups and then took it home as a reminder of world hunger. We were able to raise about $9,000 to support three community programs – the SIRCH Community Kitchen, the Haliburton 4Cs Food Bank and the Fuel for Warmth program.

The repaired cookie jar lid and gravy boat handle will set to touch in about an hour. Then their owners can take them home and remove the tape the following day. What’s ahead for Michelle? She’s looking forward to setting up a full pottery studio at her off-grid home near Haliburton. “Right now, I’m modifying an electric kiln to operate on propane. And I’m always looking to organize more cooperative pottery events or groups in future.”

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In 2024, Michelle and her fellow volunteer fixers at SIRCH made a big commitment to sustainability. They repaired more than 500 items ranging from ceramics and clothing to electronics and small appliances. Toss it? No way!

For more information on Haliburton’s SIRCH Community Services and its Repair Cafe, please visit: sirch.on.ca

“When something is broken, I feel its pain” — Interview with fixer Neville Tebbit

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Growing up on a farm in Rhodesia, Neville Tebbit (pictured below at right, with fellow volunteer Jurgen), often helped his Dad fix things. “I would take things apart and wanted to know how they worked,” he recalls. As a teen, he completely rebuilt a “rust-bucket” 1966 Jaguar. These days, Neville, whose professional job involves servicing xray spectrometers used in mining and other sectors, is contributing his fix-it savvy to the SIRCH Repair Café in Haliburton, Ontario.

Neville, it looks like you have taken apart a toaster. Can you tell us how you are repairing it?

The problem is with the plug. We don’t have a new plug, but we are repurposing a good one from a non-repairable coffee maker. The connection needs to be soldered and then we can put the toaster back together and test it.

Do you have a philosophy about fixing broken things?

When something is broken, I feel its pain. I want to jump in there and make it feel good again. That makes me happy, especially when I can make a good repair without spending money. New parts to repair something can often exceed the cost of the entire item, so I often try to find a good used part that will do the job. That is the challenge and joy of it.

What do you enjoy most about your role at the Repair Café? How do you see the future of this concept?

The community feeling here is great. But also, our ability to change mindsets. Our society has reached a point where in many cases it is harder to fix things. For example, sometimes manufacturers may prevent us from fixing their products.

We have all heard of the concept of a disposable society. We have to push back against that thinking and promote the right to repair.

About 15 minutes later, Neville’s repair is almost complete. He carefully re-assembles the older Proctor-Silex toaster in its white casing and re-installs the knobs on the control switches. He tests it — and the repaired toaster works like a charm. Its owner (pictured above) is happy to have it back in working order, and SIRCH Community Services will receive a donation to support its work benefiting the Haliburton community.

Both Neville and his wife Zena are dedicated volunteers at the Repair Cafe. Zena was busy today registering guests and connecting them with the volunteer fixers. They made the drive north from the city early this morning to join a volunteer team fixing dozens of items ranging from small appliances, electronics, clothing, ceramics and more.

Toss it? No way!

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The final 2024 SIRCH Repair Cafe was held in November — Neville, Zena and their fellow volunteers will be back when the event starts up again in spring 2025. For more on SIRCH Community Services and its Repair Cafe, please visit sirch.on.ca

Meet the fixers

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Haliburton SIRCH Repair Café volunteers save hundreds of items from landfill

(My article published in the Oct. 29/24 Haliburton Echo — I am proud to support the great work of the SIRCH Repair Cafe as a volunteer)

Toss it? No way?

So far this year, volunteer fixers have repaired more than 500 items at the Haliburton SIRCH Repair Café – from electronics and small appliances to clothing and jewelry, to ceramics, furniture, bikes and more.

“Sometimes it is a treasured keepsake like a piece of china, or a functional item like a toaster,” says Repair Café Project Coordinator Dianne Woodcock. “In every case, by repairing something instead of tossing it away, we are helping the community — and the environment.”

Donations towards repaired items support the good works of SIRCH Community Services in Haliburton.

The final monthly event of 2024 runs Sunday November 3rd from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the SIRCH Bistro and Bakery at 49 Maple Ave. Have something broken that needs fixing? Come on over! After the November 3rd event, the Repair Café will start up again in April, 2025.

The Repair Café fixers and other volunteers are dedicated to helping Haliburton residents. They’re also pushing back against a disposable culture — and supporting the right to repair. Let’s meet a few of them.

“When something is broken, I feel its pain,” says fixer Neville Tebbit.  “I want to jump in there and make it feel good again. That makes me happy, especially when I can make a good repair without spending money. New parts to repair something can often exceed the cost of the entire item, so I often try to find a good used part that will do the job. That is the challenge and joy of it.”

Neville (right) with fellow volunteer fixer Jurgen work to replace a toaster cord.

Neville grew up on a farm in Rhodesia and developed a fix-it mentality and skills from his father. In his professional life, he fixes specialized instruments used in mining and other sectors. As a volunteer at the SIRCH Repair Café, he recently fixed a toaster, CD player, bike and more.

Keli Schmidt operates the Haliburton Clothing Co, drafting, cutting and sewing women’s and men’s fashions. She also brings her sewing talents to the SIRCH Repair Café, giving a new lease on life to garments that might otherwise be tossed away.

Keli repairs a shirt collar.

“The dominance of fast fashion presents many problems,” says Keli.  “Since most manufacturers are only concerned with price, it’s difficult to find good-quality fabrics. Clothing has been devalued, especially for younger people who have grown up with fast fashion.” Keli notes there are environmental and social benefits to repairing clothing. “We should all be looking at ways to reduce and re-use.  And of course you’re also saving money along the way.”

Whether it’s a broken bike, projector or even an iPad, SIRCH Repair Café volunteer Andrew Ablett believes he can find a way to fix it. A former auto mechanic, Andrew left the city a few years ago for a quieter life in the Haliburton area. He now runs his own property maintenance company while he and his wife raise a young family.

Andrew brings tools, knowledge and a can-do attitude

“The more difficult the challenge, the more I like it,” Andrew says.  “I guess I am a bit obsessive that way — when I take something apart, I am focused on understanding how it works and putting it back together. I don’t have a photographic memory but when I disassemble something I can typically recall exactly where things go. Some of that skill comes from multi-tasking as an auto mechanic.”

Michelle Anton is a high-school teacher by profession who has a passion for the craft of pottery. At the Repair Café, she fixes broken ceramics, giving a new lease on life to often-treasured items.

Michelle repairs a broken cookie jar lid. Her next challenge was the handle on a broken 1940s-era china gravy boat.

“Most important for me is taking a cooperative approach to pottery,” says Michelle. “To help the community, I organized an event called Empty Bowls. We had local potters make bowls, and 12 local restaurants make soup. Participants chose a bowl to sample the soups and then took it home as a reminder of world hunger. We were able to raise about $9,000 to support three community programs – the SIRCH Community Kitchen, the Haliburton 4Cs Food Bank and the Fuel for Warmth program.”

Lynda Shephard is busier than ever after retiring from a leadership development role with the province. She has taken on a few volunteer roles with SIRCH, supporting the work of the social services agency in the Haliburton community. She also chairs a local charitable organization, Brooksong, that provides community and a healing space for people living with cancer.

Lynda is a volunteer greeter at the SIRCH Repair Café.

“When people come in with their items to be repaired, I want to make them feel comfortable,” says Lynda. “I chat with them and let them know about the process. I show them to the registration table. I may speak with them when they are in the waiting area, to find out more. Sometimes there are bigger issues than the object they have brought in for repair. One senior shared with me that she was struggling at home with things like yard maintenance. I was able to provide a local contact to enable her to get some assistance.”

Besides the Repair Café, Lynda volunteers at the SIRCH Thrift Warehouse. “I am responsible for curating books, organizing them into categories like fiction, biography, gardening, decorating etc. – to make it easier for patrons to find the books they want. There is a nice connection with the Repair Café, because some items repaired by our fixers are sold at the thrift store, with proceeds to SIRCH.

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In 2024, with repairs topping 500 and counting, Coordinator Dianne Woodcock also invited special guests to attend the monthly cafes, including a small engine specialist, bike mechanic and children’s toy expert.

The 2024 repair season is drawing to a close, but you’re invited to come out to the November 3rd, 2024 event at SIRCH, says Dianne.

“Bring a broken item, have a coffee – and meet our fixers!”

Article and photos by SIRCH volunteer Ian Kinross