Archives: Events

The library is back to serving coffee (and tea!) during Coffee House, isn’t that great? Join the library community for a special moment to talk about anything and everything (in English of course!). Just come in and chat with others, have a cuppa and enjoy the company! The library requires a pass sanitaire but no masks. Thank you for your patience, we will all get through this together, let’s keep our spirits up while keeping everyone safe!

Coffee House is free and open to all library members. No need to reserve!

The library is an authorised test center for the TOEIC Listening and Reading Test (the Test of English for International Communication). For more information please visit our TOEIC page or to sign up go to the official ETS website.

Do you love French food and restaurants? Would you like to speak English more, but in a relaxed environment? Join the Luncheon Club! Enjoy a meal and great conversation in English once a month at a local restaurant. This activity is open to library members. Spaces are limited. For more information or to sign up, please contact the group coordinator here.

The Saturday Reading Group is for anyone who loves to read, socialize in English, and meet new people. This Saturday, the group will read Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier.

Girl with a Pearl Earring centers on Dutch painter Vermeer’s prosperous Delft household during the 1660s. The title comes from Vermeer’s famous painting of a young girl. Vermeer painted scenes from ordinary life. This book is equally a portrait of everyday life in seventeenth-century Delft, as lived by ordinary people. In order to support her family, seventeen year old Griet becomes a maid in the house of Johannes Vermeer and soon attracts the master painters attention. Although worlds apart in upbringing and social standing, Vermeer recognizes her intuitive understanding of his work and slowly draws her into his mysterious world of art and passion. Whilst she falls increasingly under Vermeers spell, his volatile family quickly grows jealous of her. Maria, his shrewd mother-in-law, struggles to maintain the familys lifestyle, but seeing that Griet inspires Vermeer, takes the decision to let their relationship develop. Van Ruijven, also sensing the intimacy between master and maid, commissions Vermeer to paint Griets portrait. The result will be one of the greatest paintings ever created  but at what cost?

Meetings are once a month on Saturday afternoons starting at 3 pm. Open to all library members. To sign up please contact the group coordinator at bookgroup@ellia.org.

Come along and bring your knitting,

Have a natter while you’re sitting,

Or learn to knit with wool provided,

Needles loaned and stitches guided.

Knitted garments are très chic,

So be in vogue and start this week.

Knit and Natter is a free activity, open to all library members. No need to reserve, just come and enjoy! If anyone has some extra yarn please bring it in.

The library is back to serving coffee (and tea!) during Coffee House, isn’t that great? Join the library community for a special moment to talk about anything and everything (in English of course!). Just come in and chat with others, have a cuppa and enjoy the company! The library requires a pass sanitaire but no masks. Thank you for your patience, we will all get through this together, let’s keep our spirits up while keeping everyone safe!

Coffee House is free and open to all library members. No need to reserve!

The February read for the book club is “The Walk Home” by Rachel Seiffert.

Stevie comes from a long line of people who have cut and run. Just like he has.

Only he’s not so sure he was right to go. He’s been to London, taught himself to get by, and now he’s working as a laborer not so far from his childhood home in Glasgow. But Stevie hasn’t told his family—what’s left of them—that he’s back. Not yet.

He’s also not far from his uncle Eric, another one who left—for love this time. Stevie’s toughened himself up against that emotion. And as for his mother, Lindsey . . . well, she ran her whole life. From her father and Ireland, from her husband, and eventually from Stevie, too.

Moving between Stevie’s contemporary Glaswegian life and the story of his parents when they were young, The Walk Home is a powerful novel about the risk of love, and the madness and betrayals that can split a family. Without your past, who are you? Where does it leave you when you go against your family, turn your back on your home; when you defy the world you grew up in? If you cut your ties, will you cut yourself adrift? Yearning to belong exerts a powerful draw, and Stevie knows there are still people waiting for him to walk home.

An extraordinarily deft and humane writer, Rachel Seiffert tells us the truth about love and about hope.

To join the book club please send an email to the group coordinator here.

Come along and bring your knitting,

Have a natter while you’re sitting,

Or learn to knit with wool provided,

Needles loaned and stitches guided.

Knitted garments are très chic,

So be in vogue and start this week.

Knit and Natter is a free activity, open to all library members. No need to reserve, just come and enjoy! If anyone has some extra yarn please bring it in.

The library is back to serving coffee (and tea!) during Coffee House, isn’t that great? Join the library community for a special moment to talk about anything and everything (in English of course!). Just come in and chat with others, have a cuppa and enjoy the company! The library requires a pass sanitaire but no masks after February 28th, 2022. Thank you for your patience, we will all get through this together, let’s keep our spirits up while keeping everyone safe!

Coffee House is free and open to all library members. No need to reserve!

If you would like to do textile arts while speaking in English, this activity is for you! Participants create textile pieces of their choice using any technique that suits them: embroidery, patchwork, quilting, weaving, collages. It is also a great opportunity for each person to learn new techniques.

Covid protocol require that you bring your own materials. Open to library members. If you would like to join the group who meets once a month, if possible, please sign up at the front desk.