JULY Repair Cafe News

Above: Computer Repair Coach Alex Baderian (left) helps Julie Maikels retrieve photos from a dead laptop at the first Saugerties Repair Cafe.

June opened with a busy weekend bursting with cafes, including new ones in Claverack and Saugerties. The Beacon Repair Cafe also returned along with assistance from new organizing team members from Fishkill; they look forward to bringing a cafe there soon as well. Warrensburg also held a first cafe at The Richards Library and we ended the month with the first of two Gardiner summer cafes being held at the Historic Locust Lawn Museum in nearby Wallkill.

New Cafe Coming to Catskill!


As we speak, an organizer is hard at work behind the scenes to bring a new cafe to the town of Catskill this fall. We are very excited, as this will be our first cafe in Greene County! If you live nearby and are interested in more information, want to volunteer as a fixer or general helper or just want to be on their new email list, please reach out to rccatskill@gmail.com.

July is quiet by RCHV standards with only nine repair cafes. Stanford opens the month with a solo cafe on Saturday, July 6th complete with repair coach Vince Murray onsite for all your welding needs. No new cafes in July but Newburgh Repair Cafe moves to a new location at the Newburgh Free Library. And we've still got your repair needs covered every weekend of the month with cafes in Dutchess, Orange, Ulster, Sullivan and Westchester counties.

July 2024 Repair Cafe Calendar

For more information, visit our online calendar.

Help us keep Repair Cafe Hudson Valley going strong! Please consider donating at the link below. Donations go to our fiscal sponsor, the 501(c)3 Sustainable Hudson Valley, but will be earmarked for RCHV if you make a note saying it is for Repair Cafes. Thank you!

Donate to RCHV

Repair Coach Corner

Ken Bosher, Electrical, Mechanical, Electronic


Cafes: Esopus, Gardiner, Kingston, New Paltz, Poughkeepsie, Rondout Valley, Saugerties, Woodstock; often guest stars at new cafes.


Legend has it that Ken Boscher, also known by the moniker “Ken Fix It,” was the very first repair coach recruited to our network. He himself confirmed that “Barbara Lane (jewelry) and I are the original-est coaches still active,” and informed me that they just both celebrated their 11th Repair Café anniversary this past May at the New Paltz Repair Cafe. When he met RCHV founder John Wackman back in 2013 before the very first Hudson Valley event, Ken had never heard of a repair cafe. But he says, “once I did, I said ‘sign me the **** up for that!” and have been doing it since.” He also told John he would happily help out for just pizza--and thus was born the great RCHV tradition of providing our volunteers with a pizza lunch for their efforts.


When I asked Ken if he had any specialty items he fixes, he jokingly responded, “lamps, seemingly endless lamps!” I have seen him fix probably more than his share of lamps, but I’ve also seen him fix many KitchenAid mixers, vacuums, radios, record players, chairs and even a number of sewing machines. As a veteran repair coach, Ken has helped many new fixers and even a few café organizers get their sea legs—because not only does he likes to fix things, he also likes to encourage others to do so too. “I remember a young mother who brought her sixish-year-old son and a broken toaster. They had a new toaster already, but he wanted to see what was inside the broken one, and maybe learn a little about how it worked. I tried not to give so much detail that he would stop listening, but to cultivate the notion that there’s nothing magical, nothing he couldn’t understand after learning a few basic principles—and that understanding a toaster would make it easier to understand the next thing. I hope he took that much home, if nothing else. Besides the busted toaster, of course.”


When he’s not at a repair café, Ken is a handyman in the greater Ulster County region where he fixes houses and, occasionally, lamps. When he gets the rare day off, he enjoys napping, snacking, snark, target shooting and reloading, and working on his own house. If you’d like to reach him for a project or question, you can do so at kenfixitny@gmail.com or 845-616-7999.

RCHV in the News

Showing off a successful knit repair by textile repair coach Kisook Suh (right) at the Irvington Repair Cafe early last month.

"Around Town" (Beacon RC), The Highlands Current, June 7, 2024.


"Decades Intersect at Repair Cafe" (Irvington RC), Rivertowns Dispatch, June 7, 2024.

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