Many thanks to those who attended our AGM on 20th June 2024. Please find the minutes below.

Date: 20th June

Time: 6pm

Place: Held online to allow volunteers and stakeholders from across Wales to join

AGENDA

  • Welcome
  • Organizational Structure
  • Growth and Progress
  • Finances
  • Strategy and plans
  • Q&A

Welcome

Welcome to the Repair Cafe Wales 2024 AGM. Thank you for attending our AGM. We will provide an overview of our activities this year and look at our strategy for the future. There will also be chance to ask questions at the end of the session.

 

Organisational Structure

  • Repair Cafe Wales are a C.I.C
  • Board of Directors: ensure company governance is followed, act as spokespeople for the organisation, build partnerships and networks with other groups across Wales, ensuring the organisation is running to the best of its ability
  • Operational Staff: support new repair cafes opening, support the existing network, and also support additional projects
  • Event organisations- repair cafes would not happen without these volunteers. They ensure the repair cafes run and coordinate volunteers in their local area
  • Fixers and hosts: facilitate the running of the event and repair all of the items which come into the repair cafes- vital volunteers at the heart of our organisation!
  • We have a Board of 5 Directors all with different areas of specialism. Names and contact details can be found on the slides.
  • We have a staff team of 9 employees and two freelancers. An organisational chart can be found in the slides which includes contact details.

 

Growth and Progress

  • We now have 137 repair cafes in our network, most in Wales and around 15 in England
  • Over 1000 items are fixed each month across the whole network
  • We have fixed nearly 20,000 items since our inception
  • This year we have introduced a Comms Officer role to strengthen our social media channels and grow our audience. As part of this growth we have launched a TikTok channel and now publish monthly newsletters with updates and good news stories from across the network
  • Please do get in touch with stories or updates from your own repair cafe that we can share
  • We have launched an AI tool for unrepairable items, which can provide advice on what to do with an item which cannot be fixed such as which recycling center to take it to or how to upcycle it
  • Foundational Economy project- this focused on working with schools to encourage more young people to get involved with repair cafes and also involved the creation of a schools pack to help them open their own repair cafes. The project also focused on supporting people through the cost-of-living crisis by opening repair cafes in economically deprived areas. We are currently working on a methodology to calculate how much money has been saved through the repair of items.
  • Fixfest 2023- we hosted Fixfest in September 2023. The conference brought together people from across the repair cafe sector. If you would like more detail on what was discussed there is a document referenced on the slides.
  • We have submitted an application to convert to Charity status because this will allow us to access more funding, receive gift aid, and access donations more readily.
  • We continue to lead the conversation in the UK around insurance and the challenges it brings to repair cafes

Finances

  • RCW has achieved huge growth over the past 5 years
  • We do not exist to make profit so the important measure is income
  • Primarily funding comes from Welsh Government but we also have around 7 other funders
  • Typical expenses which come out of this funding includes: staff costs, insurance, travel expenses, IT costs, tools and consumables

Strategy & Plans

  • We have been through huge growth over the past 5 years and our current strategy comes to an end in Jan 2025 so we are currently developing our next 5-year strategy to run to 2023
  • Whilst we have achieved lots of growth over the last 5 years, we are looking to consolidate this growth and put plans in place to ensure the organisations stability and financial security
  • Because of this a key area of our strategy is income generation
  • A key role of the organisation is behaviour change- how can we encourage the normalization of repair and get more people involved in repair cafes?
  • Youth engagement is a key part of our strategy moving forward to ensure skills continue to be passed down and ensure the longevity of the repair cafe movement
  • The quick turnover of funding provides a level of insecurity to the organisation which has to be considered when planning for the future

Q&A

Some key questions asked during the Q&A session are highlighted below:

Can we be notified when a new repair cafe is opening so we can support them?

Yes, we do have informal budding systems locally, but we can certainly look to use our enhanced comms channels and the newsletter to better share this information.

How do we access the newsletter?

Volunteers and visitors are added to the mailing list when they complete a form. If you would like to be added there is a sign-up box on the website.

What is the age limit for young volunteers?

Volunteers must be 16 years or older for insurance and safeguarding reasons.