MALVERN'S pioneering repair cafe starts 2017 with a new management team, and with a visit from a BBC film crew.

For the last four years, the repair cafe, the first of its kind in the UK, has become a popular feature in the Malvern calendar, attracting 50 or more customers each month.

Now that founders Chris and Jan Dyer have moved away from Malvern, a new team has taken over, led by Colin Walls, a long-time repairer with the group.

He said: "I like a challenge, so I agreed. I quickly got together a team, each of whom has a well-defined area of responsibility.

"The team are all dedicated to keeping the repair cafe running just like it has over the past few years and, in due course, finding ways to do even better.

"Our biggest assets are the repairers and other volunteers, who all work together with the simple goal: to fix as many items as we can.”

“Every month around 50 customers come along to give us new challenges. Why not try us yourselves?”

The next cafe, on Saturday, January 21, between 10am and 1pm at the Friends Meeting House, Orchard Road, will feature a visit from a BBC crew who will film the work in progress. The programme and the date of broadcast have not yet been disclosed.

To date, 1,500 customers have brought more than 2,200 items to be examined and repaired and the cafe’s success rate is a consistent 80 per cent.

Anyone can bring anything along and the cafe’s team of willing and skilled repairers will try to correct whatever is wrong. Whilst no charge is levied for the repairs, customers are encouraged to make a modest donation to the cafe’s overheads.

While waiting for their repairs to be completed, customers can enjoy tea, coffee and delicious homemade cakes.

Televisions, clothing, food mixers, computers, chairs, tables, bicycles, children’s toys, watches, clocks and mobile phones are just some of the items the team of 35 multi-skilled and committed volunteers and repairers has dealt with.

"All of this effort has saved large sums of money for the owners of the items and, of course, a huge amount of waste from being sent to landfill.