Sidmouth's Repair Café - part of an international movement
PUBLISHED: 07:00 12 May 2019 | UPDATED: 09:14 13 May 2019
A youngster tries her hand at one of the many Repair Cafes in the world.
Repair Cafés are opening up all over the world, in schools, churches and youth centres.
At one Belgian college, 'dysfunctional devices' belonging to members of the community are brought in and repaired by students. As the head said: "It helps them enhance their skills, while raising their awareness on issues of sustainability."
Martine Postma, director of Repair Café International also says it's about education: "Our volunteers are happy to show their neighbours the basics of repairing, but the real change will come when repair skills are put on the curriculum once more."
At Sidmouth's Repair Café, it's also not just about fixing stuff. It's also about showing people why things have broken down. And if spare parts are needed, then advice is always given - and so even those whose gadget isn't immediately fixed leave happy.
The next Repair Café is on Saturday, May 25, 10am to 1pm, at the Youth Centre in Manstone Lane.
To read more features from East Devon Resident, click here.
Online repair communities are spreading repair knowledge online to place power back in the hands of consumers
When Jessa Jones’s twin daughters flushed her iPhone 4S down the toilet, she decided that she was going to fix it herself. She took the toilet apart in her backyard, retrieved the device, and then searched online for how to make it turn on again. On DIY fix-it forums, she was informed that the first step was to replace the battery. She did this with relative ease, but the phone wouldn’t charge, which suggested that the water had also seeped into the phone’s motherboard.
For most, this would mean giving up and going to the Apple store. But Jones was determined. She had no experience working with electronics but by trawling through online tutorials, she taught herself how to use a soldering iron and replace microscopic components inside the phone. She eventually succeeded and got the device working again.
Jones found the repair work satisfying, and repairing electronics became a new hobby. She started buying dead devices on Craigslist and refurbishing them to sell. Then she listed herself on eBay as a mail-in motherboard repairperson – within months, repair shops across the country were sending her micro-soldering jobs that were too complex for them.
Jones soon had more business than she could handle. After recruiting other stay-at-home moms in her neighborhood and teaching them electronics repair, she launched a small business from her dining room called MommyFixits. “Suddenly our play dates became moms sitting around the dining table fixing mailed-in iPhones,” she told me.
As Jones’s expertise grew, she discovered that technology manufacturers used underhanded techniques to discourage independent repair. Phone and tablet parts were glued together, causing components to break when pried apart. Schematics and manuals were copyrighted and kept under trade secret. Apple even used their own proprietary “pentalobe” screws, which cannot be removed with common screwdrivers.
Despite these barriers to repair, Jones knew that fixing things independently, instead of taking them back to the manufacturer, was almost always possible and often cheaper. To spread her knowledge, she started a YouTube channel called iPad Rehab, which offered step-by-step repair tutorials for other DIY enthusiasts.
One of Jones’s more popular videos was of her fixing “touch disease” on an iPhone 6, a common problem where the touch pad stops working. Jones told me that this issue was endemic in iPhone 6s due to a design error in the phone that allowed it to bend, meaning that a small component on the logic board would dislodge. When Apple customers took their faulty phones back to the Apple store, they were given a replacement at a reduced price. The problem, according to Jones, was that the new phone had precisely the same defect as the old one, and the “touch disease” would return, sometimes in a matter of days.
In her 30-minute video, Jones demonstrated how she could fix the cause of the problem by adding a tiny metal wire under one part of the logic board, which prevented the component from dislodging. “When people watched that video, they could see a real person opening up a phone, explaining how it works, and then fixing the problem. It was so different from the experience of the Apple shop, where a Genius disappears and comes back with a white box,” she said.
“My YouTube channel just raised awareness that real repair is possible.”
Jones, whose channel now has more than 115,000 followers, is part of a network of YouTube tinkerers who are spreading their repair knowledge online to place power back in the hands of consumers.
Kyle Wiens, co-founder of the online repair community iFixit, uses YouTube to broadcast “teardowns”, where he dismantles a device piece by piece to show users how everything inside works and its potential reparability. Louis Rossmann, a technician with a small repair shop in New York, has a channel with more than 800,000 followers, where he regularly posts videos of him repairing Apple computers. There are also hundreds of thousands of amateur videos, where people from around the world teach others how to repair washing machines, light fixtures, cars, pool filters, rice cookers, and so on.
According to Nathan Proctor, director of the Campaign for the Right to Repair at the US Public Interest Research Group, this YouTube community is an integral part of a broader political movement that is attempting to wrest consumer agency from an increasingly consolidated electronics marketplace.
Proctor says that while in the past there was a legal balance between protecting manufacturers’ intellectual property and empowering consumers to tinker with, modify, and repair their own products, the rise of software in electronics has shifted power to manufacturers. Not only are the products more complex and harder to fix, the line between self-repair and hacking has become nebulous, meaning that manufacturers have been able to use digital copyright law to gain a legal monopoly over repair. This, in turn, has created a broader cultural anxiety around self-repair, a sense that when our devices malfunction, the problem can only be dealt with by so-called experts at a specific company.
According to Proctor, YouTube channels such as Jones’s are useful in disrupting this dynamic. “I frequently will talk to people who had something break on their phone and were told that they had to replace it with the manufacturer,” he said. “But then they go on YouTube and watch a video and realize that fixing it isn’t impossible, that you could learn how to or find someone who can.”
As a result of this, those at the forefront of the online repair community are sometimes met with hostility from manufacturers. Apple has brought suits against unauthorized repair shops and have had their intellectual property lawyers directly contacted some YouTube tinkerers.
This type of behavior has radicalized a number of YouTube repairers, including Jones and Rossmann, whose videos now often venture into right to repair advocacy. This places them in a growing coalition of consumer freedom advocates, farmers, hackers, and environmentalists who are pushing for legislation that will allow consumers to fix what they own and empower third-party independent repair shops. In the US, so far 20 states have expressed interest in this type of legislative reform, and Senator Elizabeth Warren in March called for a national right to repair bill, which, while specifically made for farmers wanting to repair their own tractors, would have broad repercussions for all technology manufacturers.
While such legislation would be a victory for consumer rights, more fundamentally, Jones sees the right to repair as an integral step in making people less alienated from the production process. “What we’re giving up when we lose the right to repair is this sense of investigation and wonder and tinkering,” she says. “We’re made to see our devices as if they are these sacrosanct objects but really, they’re just a battery and a screen, something that a stay-at-home mom can learn how to fix in her dining room.”
European elections 2019: what will happen in England’s South West?
In recent years the South West of England has become a Conservative stronghold, as the opposition from the Liberal Democrats in rural areas dwindled, restoring an older pattern of Labour challenging from the few big cities like Bristol, Plymouth and Exeter. However, in European Parliament elections, UKIP came first in 2014, winning two of the region’s six seats, and helping shape a strong Leave vote in the 2016 Brexit referendum – an inheritance that now falls to the Brexit Party. With regional Conservative support now at unprecedentedly low levels, the three strong pro-Remain parties are vying to get two seats between them. With voters able to cast only a single vote for a party list, the Democratic Audit team reviews likely outcomes and the main potentially electable candidates.
The South West region spans across Bristol, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Somerset, Dorset, Devon and Cornwall, plus the overseas territory of Gibraltar. With several high-profile celebrity candidacies competing, the region has attracted greater than usual media attention. The Conservatives’ past lock on electoral success here was squeezed in previous European Parliament elections, culminating in 2014, when UKIP won 32% to the Tories’ 29%, though both parties picked up two seats.
The new Brexit Party has inherited almost all the past UKIP voters and seems to have cannibalised much of the Conservative vote share too. Figure 1 shows that in aComRes poll conducted in early May Farage’s party has 34% support in this region and so will easily gain two seats. Ann Widdecombe, a former Conservative minister (and Strictly Come Dancing contestant) heads their list and is guaranteed to win a seat. They should also gain another one, and a third seat is not beyond the bounds of possibility.
Labour are currently polling second with 18%, up quite a bit on their 14% in 2014. Their incumbent MEP Clare Moody heads their list and is sure to be re-elected, but Lord Andrew Adonis (an arch-Remainer and supporter of a second referendum) still looks unlikely to win a second seat. Labour’s efforts to seek votes from both Leave and Remain supporters reflects the tensions in its position on Brexit, so pro-Remainers may choose to support one of the next three parties taking an unambiguous Remain line.
The Greens won the region’s final seat with 11% support in 2014. On the regional ComRes poll they are currently on 9%. But they face competition from the resurgent Liberal Democrats on 13% and Change UK/The Independent Group on 11%. This result would give the Liberal Democrats one seat, and the new Change UK party would also gain a seat, while the Greens might miss out. The Greens have the advantage of an incumbent and relatively well known MEP in Molly Scott Cato. But Change UK’s lead candidate here is Rachel Johnson (a well-known journalist and also Boris Johnson’s sister). Which of them prevails may hang on a combination of personal profile and their party’s national fortunes – which vary considerably from poll to poll. To complicate the picture, in the ComRes regression analysis of their poll (details in the footnote to Figure 1) the Liberal Democrats were rated well ahead on 17%, and Change UK and the Greens both counted out at 6%. Given the small samples in regional polls, the exact standing of these smaller parties is especially hard to judge.
Meanwhile on the right, the Conservatives languish on just 11% in Figure 1, and on this basis would retain only one of their seats. However, again the ComRes re-analysis using demographics and regression techniques boosts their vote share to 16%, although this is still not enough for a second seat.
Finally UKIP itself has just 3% of voters backing it and no chance of a seat. Their second-placed candidate is the social media provocateur Carl Benjamin, who has been banned from most social media for making unpleasant rape jokes targeting female MPs, attracting considerable press and public condemnation. He has no chance of being elected, but may have helped hasten his party’s total demise.
All the parties have six parties standing in the region, though any one listed in the bottom half of their candidate list cannot possibly win a seat under proportional representation. Voters select just one party to vote for on the ballot paper, not individual candidates. In making up their minds which party list to support, voters need only pay attention to the candidates in the shaded boxes below.
Figure 1: Main party candidates in the South West (with ComRes poll data, 1–7 May 2019) and possible winners
Note: ComRes also produced revised poll numbers using a technique called MRP, which adjusts the results based on past results and local demographics, and puts the Brexit Party on 30%, Labour on 19%, Lib Dems on 17% Conservatives on 16%, Greens on 9% and Change UK on 6%).
To find details of all the local candidates, and to locate your polling station, visit our Democratic Dashboard site and enter your postcode. The site also has full details of other recent elections in your local area.
Below we list a summary of any candidate in Figure 1 with some chance of being elected, and point you to their social media sites, which can show something of what each candidate is like as a person. At the bottom of this article we also show the full 2014 results for the South West.
Which candidates could be elected in the South West in 2019?
THE BREXIT PARTY has fielded a list headed by some high-profile candidates, strengthening their assured chance of winning two seats, and perhaps even three on a good surge day.
Ann Widdecombe was Conservative MP for a constituency in Maidstone from 1987 to 2010, and served in several ministerial roles in John Major’s government, including as Minister for Prisons. (For a summary of her Commons’ voting record, look here). She is known for holding strongly socially conservative views. Since leaving politics she has appeared on numerous television shows, and in pantomime.
James Glancy (Twitter: @jaglancy) is a former Royal Marine and Special Boat Service officer who served in Afghanistan. He is also an environmental campaigner and presenter of Discovery’s ‘Shark Week’ programme.
Christina Jordan is a former nurse, airline attendant, and charity worker. You can read an interview with her here.
LABOUR look certain to retain their current seat, but unlikely to get enough support to win another one.
Clare Moody (Twitter: @ClareMoodyMEP) was elected MEP in 2014 (reversing a complete fail for Labour in 2009). For her voting record in the Brussels parliament see her Votewatch.eu profile. She sits on committees covering defence, foreign affairs, industry, and women’s rights. She previously worked as an official for the trade union Unite.
Andrew Adonis (Twitter: @Andrew_Adonis) was a political advisor to Tony Blair, and was made a Labour peer in 2005 when he joined the government as a junior minister, first for education and then transport. Since the referendum he has been a vocal pro-European campaigner in the People’s Vote campaign, and is vice-Chair of the European Movement.
LIBERAL DEMOCRATS – Until 2014,the Lib Demsregularly returned MEPs to the European Parliament from the South West. On current polling, they have a good chance of getting one elected again.
Caroline Voaden (Twitter: @CarolineVoaden) is a former Reuters journalist, who has worked for charities and run her own business. You can read her full biography here.
CONSERVATIVES – Their recent regional dominancehas not been enough to insulate them in this election. Although they will hold one of their existing seats, they are quite likely to lose the other on the ComRes data.
Ashley Fox (Twitter:@Ashleyfoxmep) was first elected to the European Parliament in 2009, and was leader of the Conservatives’ group there. For his voting record see his Votewatch.eu profile. Before going to Brussels he was a local councillor in Bristol and a solicitor.
James Mustoe (Twitter: @JamesMustoe1) is a councillor for Mevagissey in Cornwall, and manages the constituency office for St Austell and Newquay MP Steve Double.
GREEN PARTY – The Green Party (just) won the region’s last seat in 2014, and their incumbent has a good chance of retaining it, although everything depends on how the strong pro-Remain vote splits.
Molly Scott Cato (Twitter: @MollyMEP) has been a Brussels MEP for the South West since 2014 and spokesperson on Brexit for the Green Party of England and Wales. For her EP profile and voting record see here. She was previously an economist and academic at the University of Roehampton.
CHANGE UK – The new party of former Labour and Conservative MPs is pushing hard in this region, and will hope that a high-profile candidate secures them one seat.
Rachel Johnson (Twitter:@RachelSJohnson) is a journalist, and the former editor of The Lady magazine. She was a supporter of the Lib Dems at the 2017 election. She is part of the Johnson political clan: her brothers are the Conservative MPs Boris and Jo Johnson.
UKIP – The party looks likely to plummet from first to last place, perhaps aided by the highly controversial Carl Benjamin in second place on their list. Even their lead candidate below has no chance of success.
Lawrence Webb (Twitter: @LawrenceJWebb) works as an assistant to the UKIP leader Gerard Batten. He was UKIP’s London mayoral candidate in 2012.
Figure 2: 2014 European Parliament results for the South West and MEPs
Source: Democratic Dashboard. Order elected and current status: 1. William (The Earl of) Dartmouth (elected as UKIP, now Independent); 2. Ashley Fox (Conservative); 3 Julia Reid (elected as UKIP, now Brexit Party); 4 Julie Girling (elected as Conservative, now Independent); 5 Clare Moody(Labour); 6 Molly Scott Cato (Green).
Read more about how the European Parliament elections work:
All EU member states will hold elections to the European Parliament between 23 and 26 May. Since the UK has now extended its membership of the EU beyond this date (and possibly until the end of October), these elections must also happen here on Thursday 23 May. The UK elects 73 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) by a proportional representation (PR) system, to represent 9 English regions, Scotland and Wales, and using the STV system in Northern Ireland. The Democratic Audit team explains how this election works, what will be on your ballot paper, and what we know so far about party prospects. In the run-up to the election we will preview the contests in your area in more detail.
Alumni Auditorium, The Forum, University of Exeter,
Stocker Road, Exeter, EX4 4SZ
Both Devon County Council and the UK Parliament have
declared a Climate Emergency. Transition Exeter has partnered with the Exeter
University's Global Systems Institute to run a free public event: Now
what? The panel will include Youth Striker Sophie Sleeman, climate
scientist Richard Betts, newly elected Exeter Green councillor Diana Moore and
Alice Mosely speaking on Citizens Assemblies.
Book your place now, and bring questions and comments to the meeting on Thursday
On 1 May 2019 UK MPs approved a motion to declare an environment and climate emergency.
More than 60 towns and cities across the UK have already declared "a climate emergency" including Devon and Cornwall County Councils.
Last month the University of Bristol became the first UK university to make a similar declaration. There is no single definition of what "a climate emergency" means but many local authorities state they want to be carbon-neutral by 2030. This will only be achievable through dramatic cuts in emissions which requires social transformation.
What steps are required to achieve rapid and extensive change?
Deep cuts in emissions will involve far-reaching changes to everyday lives, physical infrastructures, patterns of investment and divestment. How can we ensure such change is rapid and extensive, yet also socially acceptable, fair and leaves no-one behind? Research suggests most people are not willing to voluntarily give up consuming meat and dairy products, driving a car and taking overseas holidays.
Is this likely to change? If so, how? What is the potential for a Citizens Assembly to enable social transformation?
This public meeting will explore these issues with a diverse panel and questions from the audience. Join us for some lively discussion and distraction from the European elections!
Local authority / public sector representative (tbc)
A public event hosted by the Global Systems Institute
The Global Systems Institute is applying Earth system science to generating networked solutions. Our aim is to work with others to secure a flourishing future for humanity as an integral part of a life-sustaining Earth system. We are uniting a trans-disciplinary group of researchers, educators and partners to look beyond single ‘environmental’ issues to a truly systemic view of coupled global changes in the human social and economic sphere and the biosphere.
A legitimate question raised by Exeter Extinction Rebellion:
Talking Climate Policies
Extinction Rebellion Event Climate Emergency - What could government be doing?
Tuesday 21st May 7 - 9 pm Exeter Community Centre
Talk and discussion about policy options
that could cut climate impact with the urgency and scale needed. When
government and councils come up with proposals we need to know what would
be good enough.
We’ll look at ‘kicks’ that start a process and ‘shifts’ that change the
rules
It's Tree Week next week: Sidmouth Arboretum And on Thursday evening, Julia Slingo, a patron of the Arboretum, will be giving an illustrated talk to the general public: ‘Trees for climate change’
Published 09.05.2019 Dame Julia Slingo served as Chief Scientist of the U.K. Met Office from 2009 to 2016 when she retired. Throughout her research career she has developed and used complex weather and climate models to understand the climate system and to predict its evolution. Her special interests are in tropical weather and climate variability, understanding their influence on the global climate system and their role in monthly to decadal climate prediction.
Climate change will be one of the defining challenges of the twenty-first century; how we respond will determine our future prosperity, health and well-being and the sustainability of Earth’s natural environment. However, these responses must be underpinned by the best possible climate science to ensure that we make wise decisions on how to build resilience to weather and climate extremes, and adapt to and mitigate climate change.
In this talk, Dame Julia Slingo will discuss the history of our understanding of how the climate system works, how this understanding has been embedded in the development of climate models, and how we use these models now to guide our actions to deliver a safe and sustainable future.
Originally presented January 11, 2019, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.
It's Tree Week next week: Sidmouth Arboretum Much of the time will be spent walking through some arboreal delights - and much of the time will be spent talking climate change: What are the effects of global warming in the UK? - Woodland Trust The Science Fest's Café Scientifique will be hosting a talk on what a good thing trees are - starting with the climate:
Cafe Scientifique: Sidmouth Tree Week: Trees for Multiple Benefits
Tuesday 21st May 2019 3:00 PM –to 4:30 PM
Location/Venue: Kennaway House Coburg Road EX10 8NG
Trees for Multiple Benefits with Bob Chard, Member of the Royal Forestry Society
VISION FOR A FOREST NATION
So now it is accepted as true. Climate change is for real and a very urgent emergency problem. The Government is going into panic mode about what to do. We have to give them some credit for their vision. UK is the first nation in the world to adopt necessary climate action targets which are both adequate and credible. Also in some respects including forestry policy the UK Government is quite well prepared for fast acceleration in new directions. We will commit to a very large increase in tree planting targets to double the woodland area.
However achieving tree planting number targets is the easy part; what is of more concern to me is the more difficult part. Will we plant the right trees and will they be planted in the right places? Will public money be spent wisely and will it be managed in the best possible way? To be sure many people in all walks of life will want to be part of the action but in the past we have made mistakes with forestry policy and we need to learn from that and not simply throw money at achieving targets.
I would like to share my knowledge and experience with you and suggest some trees which we can all plant and nurture, as well as my own project which is designed to grow unusual trees as substitutes for current unsustainable imports of tropical hardwood timbers; much of which is being illegally felled, is uncertified and imported from the other side of the planet with a large carbon footprint, at ever increasing cost. We have to do better.
Everyone welcome. This is a free event so please buy a drink to keep it so
