A full day of repair-themed events!
This is a full day of repair events. Here’s the schedule!
i’m just doing the final draft (pre printing) of the Repair Fest schedule and wondering whether the Dyson maintenance would be better suited to a more informal drop in (stall, ) what does everyone think? we might reach more people if they can just stop by for a chat rather than having to sign up? I’ll email Ian to ask him - i dont think he is signed up to the forum yet?
You mean Iain who also comes to the monthly hubs? I have his email from Taiga, I think, I can shoot him an invite.
I think Dyson specifically might be niche, but if it were more generic vacuum maintenance it might get traction?
this is the final version of the event leaflet
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@mcFisher could we get some of these cards in time for the Fest? I think they’d be useful on the electrical stand…
yes i’ll order some today.
unfortunately these are sold out online.
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This was really good from my perspective…
Repair Cafe (am)
Super busy. I’m guessing about 3x what we normally see at our monthly events, and we’ve got quite the backlog to tackle now.
Also nice to see our local MP and MSP come along - @mcFisher did they sign the petition?
Lunch
Had some really good conversations with various folks over a bowl of soup and a sandwich. Given my tech background, and the Linux workshop I was about to run, the topic steered towards use of open source, costs vs quality, and re-using old tech. I came away with a lot of thoughts to mull on.
Workshops (pm)
@martyn & I ran an Installing & Using Linux workshop. It was actually the biggest of the day (I think?), we had 8-9 people in the room, and engagement was good.
The theme was very much “I don’t want Windows 11”, and we presented a slide deck on what Linux is (and isn’t) and tried to demystify it a bit. I brought along 6 Fedora laptops and let most folks have a play, before handing out 6 USB sticks and demonstrating the install process. We also talked about where data lives, how to back it up to a removable drive, application installation, and so on.
People seemed to go away happy - I don’t expect them to go do an install by themselves off the bat, but hopefully it takes the scary edge off things. Perhaps we’ll see them at the next Repair Cafe for an install.
Lessons learned for me:
- Power strips & USB sticks. I had more laptops, but no sticks to install them with. Even if we had those, the lecture theatre we were in was limited in power and tables.
- Some kind of mobile wifi hotspot. The “play with the Linux desktop” is far less impactful if you can’t browse the web, browse the software repositry, maybe try installing something.
- Maybe review the slides. Feedback was good, but I worry we’re talking about what matters to us as speakers, rather than what they’ve come to find out. Worth reviewing.
Thanks for organising it @mcFisher!
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