Tag Archive for: repair cafe

Grain and Flame – Recycling Comes of Age

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by Keir Hartley

The sustainability movement has achieved great things in the last decade. “Repair”, “recycle” and “reuse” are words that everyone uses now, from businesses and TV shows to repair cafés across the country including the ones run by Sussex Green Living. Dare we hope they’re here to stay? The evidence suggests so, as we discovered when we visited Peter and Kim Beadle and their seven dogs of Grain and Flame in Goring by Sea.

Grain and Flame transforms discarded materials into cherished garden ornaments. Old cutlery is metamorphosed into hovering dragonflies. Chicken wire becomes lifelike owls frozen in flight. Copper is beaten and welded into graceful lilies. Peter got the idea after a lifetime in the building trade. Kim soon joined in. A happy hobby became a business, and the building industry provided the raw materials for one of their star items. Read more

Crafternoons in Horsham

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This October Sussex Green Living will be opening the doors to something new at the Horsham Repair Café. We are calling it Crafternoons, and the idea is simple: an afternoon each month where people can sit together, bring something they are making, and enjoy a couple of hours of creativity and company. The support of the National Lottery Community Fund has made it possible to add this new strand to our work, and we are excited to see where it leads.  

Crafternoons will take place from twelve until two, alongside the usual Repair Café. The set-up is very informal. Some people might arrive with their knitting or embroidery, others with a sketchbook or some mending to do. There will be craft materials provided as well, many of them rescued or repurposed. The community café will be open for tea, coffee and cake, and the pace will be slow and sociable.   Read more

Repair Cafe

Protecting the Battery Life

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Repair Cafe “The battery won’t charge…” We hear these words very often at the Horsham Repair Cafe. It’s true that batteries don’t last forever, but we can make a drastic difference to its life expectancy. The original hybrid car, the Toyota Prius, uses a large traction battery.  Many are still running 20 years later.  So, how can the Prius keep the battery working efficiently for 20 years when some phone batteries only last three? Why do some household battery devices (vacuum cleaners for example) sometimes become useless after two years?

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Green Hub Map

Communities take Action

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Green Hub Map

Green Hub Map

You might be feeling the world is not making enough progress with serious action to address the climate and ecological crises, especially with attention being diverted to the energy and cost of living crisis. Crisis after crisis, hey! However, we are seeing a rising of communities coming together to show how being leaner and greener helps save money and the planet.

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