Recruiting volunteers
Don’t try to run a repair café all by yourself! You can’t be everywhere at once, and you need to protect yourself from burnout. You need a crew.
Why recruit volunteers?
Volunteers, across all kinds of roles, are the backbone of a repair cafe. Trying to run a repair cafe by yourself will quickly overwhelm you, and also make the repair cafe less effective. If you’ve been to a SEE Change repair cafe before, you’ll notice there are normally several repairers, as well as coordinators and other admin volunteers. Behind the scenes, volunteers also help finance and promote the repair cafes, as well as organising locations, stalls, and equipment!
Finding volunteers
While you may already have some people on board and ready to volunteer, putting a call out to the community can help you find additional volunteers, as well as stir up interest and awareness of your upcoming repair cafe. Importantly, volunteers need to be able to commit to a full repair cafe, and ideally be able to volunteer regularly.
Some tips for finding new volunteers:
Contact existing community groups.
Post on physical and Facebook community noticeboards.
Ask friends and family who you know have fixing skills.
Think outside the box – some repairers cut hair, give hand massages, format documents, or troubleshoot spreadsheets.
Once you’ve got some interest, it’s time to find out specific skills, availability, and other relevant information. Here are some good starter questions to ask prospective volunteers:
What’s your experience with repair cafés?
Which of the tasks (or specific repairs, for repairers) can you take on?
What would you like to get out of volunteering?
What resources do you have available to support your volunteer role(s)?
How much time can you commit to this café?
Are there any potential venues nearby that you know about and/or have connections with?
The key to a successful repair cafe and a good experience for all volunteers is clear communication. Set up a group chat or email thread with your volunteers and keep them in the loop with important developments. Repair cafes are as much about community as they are repairing, and keeping everyone involved with the cafe helps to retain interest and promote collaboration.
How SEE change can help
SEE Change has lots of experience managing volunteers, and often lots of volunteers looking for projects to help with! If you get stuck trying to find people to help out, reach out to the SEE Change office and we can help you get your repair cafe out there - whether by newsletter, social media, or email.