Totally agree on the importance of skill sharing.

Sharing skills and knowledge is a big part of RC culture. The idea is ‘fix your thing with someone’ rather than ‘get your thing fixed’. But it does vary from place to place and fixer to fixer.

In the London Restart community skillshares used to be common - fixers gathering together to share what they know (soldering skills, PAT testing, Linux, fault diagnosis, that kind of thing).

Also check out the move towards permanent fixing spaces like Fixing Factories - www.fixingfactory.org - skills training is a big part of them.