[HLUG] Any interest in working with Presteigne Repair cafe installing Linux and open source?

[Julian Robbins]

Hi all

Hope you're all doing well. It's warm on holiday for us at the moment but
looks like it will be nearly as warm in the UK when we return home. 🌅

Things have been a bit slow without too many events in the LUG for obvious
reasons the last couple of years, but hopefully now we should soon be able
to start putting on our own workshop style events and more.

But it's also good to work alongside other groups. Before COVID struck we
looked at whether we could form an alliance with a repair cafe type group
to 'repair' computers/ phones with Linux.  We wouldn't necessarily fix
hardware or anything we don't want to tackle as this is a free service.
Perhaps consider working on older windows machines where these devices no
longer run very well due to viruses or just old and overloaded
operating systems.

Working with another group makes it easier to get started with events with
less effort and people needed than events just put on by ourselves.

The other week I went along to the Presteigne Repair Cafe to see what they
were up to and see if we could perhaps get involved. It was quite busy
there and I got a warm welcome from the repair group members.

The group were especially happy to hear from me as they don't have any
digital device fixing / improving skills at all and would welcome our HLUG
help if we were to wish to get involved.

The repair cafe is held monthly between 10 and 12pm in the town so it's not
very onerous timewise especially if a number of us get involved.

Something they pointed out is that some items are brought in on the day to
be fixed there and then, for say simple fixes (mains cables) but the group
are also keen to get people to drop off devices earlier in the week which
could be fixed and returned at the monthly repair cafe event, so this saves
having to necessarily work on the machines there and then if not preferred.

I appreciate Presteigne may be a bit out of the way for some in our group,
but I guess if we were to contact another repair cafe say in Ledbury or
Malvern that the same situation would also prevail. Also other groups often
have PC / digital skills available and then they may prefer to just fix a
pc by reinstalling Windows or just trying virus removal whereas what we can
offer is quite different. We're not stepping on anyone's toes so to speak
with the Presteigne repair cafe.

We will need to get an idea of numbers of who might be interested in this
idea before I speak to the Presteigne folk again, but obviously it's early
days and no-one will be asked to do anything they don't want or could no
longer be able to offer to do. it's all supposed to be a bit of fun, to
help the community and to tell people about what they might be missing out
by trying out Linux and Open Source.

So what do you think? We need to be clear on what we would to help with and
more specifically what we don't want to work on (fixing phone screens ! 😃

Please reply with any let's thoughts and ideas on the above before we go
any further.

Thanks and enjoy the good weather..
Julian