Kees Vissers and Jannes Hamming
Repair Café Winsum
Meet Kees Vissers, coordinator, and Jannes Hamming, a volunteer at Repair Café Winsum. The repair café is held ten times a year in the De Poort building on Borgweg, usually on the last Saturday morning of the month. Here, 15 enthusiastic volunteers breathe new life into broken appliances, garden tools, clothes, bikes and toys by repairing them. “As well as being about technology, this is also a place where people come together, and that’s just as important,” says Kees Vissers.
An alternative to throwing things away
Around 11 years ago, drawing on his technical background and his work in the social sector, Kees began to develop the idea for a repair café. “I noticed that there was a growing interest in repairing things, and I wanted to offer an alternative to simply throwing away broken items.” After some searching, he found a suitable venue and the volunteers to bring this idea to life. And now, more than ten years later, Repair Café Winsum is still going strong!
“ “I’m proud of how much enjoyment we get from doing this. The volunteers and visitors leave feeling satisfied, and we’ve had a fun and informative morning.” ”
Repairing things is rewarding
At the repair café, they receive a wide range of broken appliances. Each volunteer has their own area of expertise; sometimes repairs are straightforward, and sometimes they take a bit longer. “When you repair something, it regains its practical value. Then it looks good again and is whole once more,” says Jannes. He finds particular satisfaction in repairing items with sentimental value. “For me, it’s wonderful to restore emotional value to broken objects and make them functional again.” Kees adds that modern appliances are becoming increasingly difficult to repair. “A lot of things are made cheaply, so the temptation to throw them away is great and people find it too much effort to repair them.” He therefore advocates for a mandatory repair scheme at European level.
Future
Looking to the future, Kees Vissers would ideally like to see the Repair Café’s audience and volunteers supplemented by some younger people. However, even with fewer young people, he is proud of the positive atmosphere amongst the volunteers and visitors. “We all go home feeling good after a morning full of repairs.”
Contact
Repair Café Winsum
Borgweg 36
9951 BG Winsum
www.repair-cafe-het-hogeland.nl
