For the purposes of this thread I'll consider Orange and Rockland county one entity, since I'm not sure where the border is.Boodles in downtown Chester regularly features folk performers both locally and nationally known.They have an upcoming spring folk festival where you could probably hook up with some local perfomers.Middletown Community college has a regular concert series on Sundays featuring mostly singer songwriters.I believe you are expected to bring food in addition to admission,so I guess there is time for interaction. A short ride south on rt 287 will bring you to the Minstrel show coffee house in Morristown NJ, where there are folk concerts every Friday.Most of the places I mentioned have web sites and you can get links from 2 of the local FM radio stations WFDU and WFUV. My friend Mark lives in Monroe NY and is very knowledgeable about the acoustic music scene in southern NY state.I'll contact him and update any relevant information,which leads me to the question of how do you find a thread once it has disappeared from the oening list?If I can"t figure it out I'll start a new thread,