Category: Advocacy

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New power tools added to “Repair Café in a Box”

We’re delighted to share an upgrade to our Repair Café in a Box programme: we’ve added a range of power tools to the equipment kit that community groups can borrow to help run repair events.

This work is funded by the Community Climate Action Programme (Round 1) under the Government’s Climate Action Fund. It builds on our 2024 funding and helps us expand what we can offer through our Repair Café rental programme, making it easier for more groups across the Dublin region to host repairs safely and confidently.

What’s included?

Alongside the usual Repair Café essentials, we now have a suite of power tools and related kit available to loan. The goal is simple: help fix more things, reduce waste, and keep useful items in service for longer.

Borrow the kit for your Repair Café (free)

Since 2024, this programme has supported Repair Cafés and community events all over the place — including plenty hosted by ourselves at TOG. If you’re organising a Repair Café (or planning one) and you’d like to borrow the equipment at no cost, just get in touch and we’ll help you figure out what you need.

Thanks

This project is made possible with support from Dublin City Council, in partnership with the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications.

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Eat the Streets Ballyfermot Community Festival!

We’re delighted to be taking part in Eat the Streets, a family-friendly festival celebrating food, community, and sustainability in Ballyfermot.

The idea is simple (and right up our alley): grow, cook, create, and discover together — bringing families, urban growers, and chefs straight from the streets to the table.

TOG workshop: Learn to wire a plug (with Jeffrey Roe)

As part of the festival, our own Jeffrey Roe will be running a hands-on “learn to wire a plug” skills workshop.

If you’ve ever looked at a plug and thought, “I should really know how to do this properly” — this is your chance. It’s a practical, confidence-boosting skill, and we’ll keep it friendly and beginner-friendly.

(Some festival workshops have limited capacity and may require free tickets — if you’re planning to do a few sessions, it’s worth checking the bookings.)

Can’t make it on the day?

No stress — if you miss Jeffrey’s learn to wire a plug workshop at the festival, we’re running the same workshop again in March as part of Engineers Week at TOG Hackerspace.

You’ll get the same practical, step-by-step guidance (and the confidence to do it safely at home).

Full details and booking info are on the TOG site:
https://www.tog.ie/2026/02/learn-to-wire-a-plug-engineers-week-edition-workshop-at-tog/

What else is on?

There’s loads happening across the afternoon, including:

  • Cooking demos: Batch Cooking, FakeAways, and Empty Your Fridge
  • Workshops: Grow it Yourself, Natural Remedies, Fun Tie-Dye and more
  • Information stalls
  • Family fun: Free face painting and children’s entertainment

Event details

  • Location: Ballyfermot Community Civic Centre
  • Date: Saturday, 14th February 2026
  • Time: 12pm – 4pm
  • Cost: Free

Come eat, learn, share, and connect

Pop down, bring the family, meet local growers and community groups, pick up a few ideas for reducing food waste, and come chat to us at TOG while you’re at it.

More info (and tickets where needed): eatthestreets.ie/festival

#EatTheStreetsFestival #SustainableFood #CommunityEvent #UrbanGrowing #FoodCulture #Ballyfermot #FamilyFriendly

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The Salvage Squad came to our Repair Café and the lamp lived to tell the tale

Back in August last year, we had a great surprise visitor at one of our Repair Cafés. The team from Virgin Media’s The Salvage Squad dropped in with a lamp that needed a bit of TLC.

Cameras and curiosity in tow, they joined the usual Repair Café buzz at TOG, with fixers working away on everything from small electronics to household bits and bobs. The lamp landed on the bench with our member Shane, supported by the other volunteer fixers on the day.

With a bit of careful troubleshooting and plenty of know-how, the lamp was brought back to life. The Salvage Squad team headed off with a lovely working lamp, and a proper appreciation for what Repair Cafés are all about. Sharing skills, keeping useful things out of the bin, and proving that “broken” often just means “not yet fixed”.

It finally aired this week

The piece we filmed back in August has finally made it to air this week, which is brilliant to see. If you missed the episode, you can catch up on the Virgin Media One player here:
https://www.virginmediatelevision.ie/player/show/2571/0/0/

A big thank you again to Shane and all the fixers who gave their time and skills on the day.

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Postcards

Every week we send a postcard to some hacker or maker space somewhere in the world.

We’ve interacted with many spaces over the years, and it’s a right of passage for our members to visit the local hacker space whenever they visit somewhere new.

Sure you can email, and there’s all manner of instant social media and messaging apps, but where is the fun in that! 

If you’d like a postcard from Dublin, let us know and we’ll add you to our list. Send us a postcard yourself!

TOG, Unit 1B Motor City, Kylemore Road, Dublin 12, D12 CF6V, Ireland.

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⚡ Into the Forest: My Week at Electric Wonderland

Here’s a travel post from one of our members, Jeffrey, who recently spent a week off-grid (and delightfully offbeat) at Electric Wonderland — a 7-day international maker/hacker camp in the Croatian countryside. Combining art, technology, science, nature, and community, the camp is built around DIY, DIWO, and DITO culture. Think campfires and coding, soldering and skywatching.

Electric Wonderland is run by Radiona, a hackerspace we’ve built strong links over the years through exchanges, visits, sharing of ideas, and plenty of friendships.

But before we get to the forest…

🎥 Pre-Camp: Days -3 to 0 – Zagreb Warm-Up

Day -3 (Friday 18)
Back in Zagreb, a city I’ve grown to love visiting over the years. This time, I was travelling with my mother again (link to FAB25 trip). I dropped into FabLab Zagreb to see my friend Richard and the crew — always great to catch up.


The last time I spent time with them was during my island-hopping trip along the Croatian coast (link).

Day -2 (Saturday 19)
Beat the heat with a morning gym session, then squeezed in some geocaching, ice cream, a tasty vegan lunch, and a visit to the Zagreb Cat Café — where I made more furry friends than I could count.

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