The Share and Repair Network represented our members at Fixfest 2025, a biennial festival of repair that showcases and celebrates community repair organisations and actions from around the world.

Organised by The Restart Project this year’s Fixfest took place in Hackney, London and welcomed individuals, organisations and networks from North and South America , Africa, India, Australia and the EU.

Watch the Fixfest video below to learn more about the event:

 

Our Share & Repair Network Coordinator Jane Owens attended the festival alongside 4 network members: Elaine Brown from the Edinburgh Remakery, Lindsey Campbell from Linlithgow Community Development Trust, Tess Goodwin from ML12 Repair Café, Biggar and Anne Sayer from Repair Café Orkney.

Share & Repair Network Coordinator Jane said:

“I loved being at Fixfest. It’s always great to catch up with people from the UK repair community and this year I particularly valued the international perspective as well. I came away with a greater understanding of the complexities of the legislative changes required to progress the Right to Repair and an admiration of the incredible campaigning work being done around the world.
I also really valued the opportunity to be part of a panel discussion on the power of networks. It was great to hear perspectives from Wales, Northern Ireland, London, Belgium and Argentina.  Thanks to the Restart Project for a great event, and to the members of the Share and Repair Network who travelled to London to be part of this celebration of repair.”

We also caught up with Lindsey, Tess and Anne on their first experience of Fixfest.

Tess Goodwin, ML12 Repair Café:

“Two days packed full of information, ideas, reassurance and information – through presentations, sharing, informal chat, film… a global hive of loveliness and delicious food too. Well worth the long trip, especially to hear the guy from Sudan who spoke of how the empowerment gained from the fixing of items in a war torn country could translate into the mending of broken traumatised relationships.”

Tess Goodwin (left) takes part in a practical workshop – photo Mark Phillips.

Lindsey Campbell, Linlithgow CDT:

“FixFest 2025 gave me the opportunity to learn what repair projects are happening all over the world and reinforced that our local efforts were part of a much larger movement. It was also really useful to hear about the different approaches to the right to repair, and the steps we can take to encourage our MPs to support Right to Repair legislation in the UK. Everyone who attended was clearly passionate about community repair, and I was delighted that Scotland was represented at the event by several projects!”

Anne Sayer, Repair Cafe Orkney who attended both days of the festival:

“On day one, I found it moving to hear from Marjolaine Bert who founded French organisation EKO to support refugees repair items. EKO designed a Wiki with instructions on how to build essentials such as lamps and cooking and refrigeration devices out of waste products and unrepairable electronics. Even plastic bottles were cut up to make twine she demonstrated. It made me think about how our own Repair Cafe might use more ‘waste’ materials.

We heard about the progress of the Right to Repair movement – allowing people access to the tools, parts and instructions to mend consumer electronics. I was surprised to learn that eight States in the U.S. including Texas now had this right. It means a citizen could request information/parts for a purchased but subsequently broken product that would enable them to repair it. France now has a repairability index on many of its consumer electronics – but that prompted the question ‘Who decides how repairable an item is?” The answer: “It’s complicated.” The EU is gaining the Right to Repair – but only for a handful of products. Progress was patchy and in some countries almost non-existent.

Day two featured more practical “how-to” sessions. It was a challenge to make electronic / electrical repair businesses viable, we learned. One solution: offer sales of refurbished electronics alongside repair. It is a model already being used by organisations like Edinburgh Remakery who have fixed premises that offer a range of services, refurbished items and workshops.

Later I tried soldering with the iFixit portable soldering kit – the latest solution from the company to support pop-up repair initiatives. Then I went to a workshop on getting young people more involved in repair that saw me reassembling a retro computer game – designed to be re-broken, lent out and repaired multiple times. I could see its value in getting inexperienced people to try their hand at fixing.

I enjoyed hearing about a repair cafe at Boomtown festival. For a pilot initiative the results were pretty staggering – 400 plus repairs over three days, often to airbeds, camping chairs and “wardrobe malfunctions”. Many young festival goers had not heard of a repair cafe but were delighted to find there was one close to home. A lot helped repair the items they brought to the repair cafe.

Fixfest certainly got me thinking about what we could be doing beyond our humble monthly pop-ups.”

Anne Sayer (right) takes part in a Team Repair workshop

The Restart project have published a wrap-up of resources from the event including videos and recordings from keynote and plenary sessions and collaborative notes from all sessions.

You can find out more about the Right to Repair Campaign at our upcoming Share and Repair Online event What is the Right to Repair? on Thursday 16th October 10am – 11.30am to mark International Repair Day.

Email our Share and Repair Network Coordinator jane@circularcommunities.scot for more information or for support setting up your own repair project in Scotland.