Archives: Events

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.

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.

The group’s 2021 collective project, a delicate creation of 25 squares, is complete and is being showcased at the library until June 21st!

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.

The garden club invites you to discover the beautiful gardens in the area!

The July visit, two public gardens and a private park in Sainte Gemmes-sur-Loire, will start at 3:00 pm. The entrance fee to the private park, La Chênerie, is €5.

Les jardins du presbytère, around the church, were created in 1995. Five different terraces offer a gorgeous view of the Loire. One is a French-style garden, then there is the blue garden, the yellow garden, the green garden and the vegetable garden.

Le jardin méditerranéen is a provençal garden, enclosed between an old stone wall and the river Loire, with many mediterranean varieties such as lavender, agapanthus, rosemary bushes, pine trees and cypresses.

La chêneraie is a private park along the river Loire with a very old oak tree which has recently been granted the ‘’remarkable tree’’ award.

This activity is open to library members and offers visits once a month to a garden between April and October. For more information and/or to sign up for this visit, please send an email to Sylvie Leys  at elliagardenclub@gmail.com.

“Sea, Sun and Fun” is a 3-day English-learning workshop for collégiens. Participants learn English in a fun, interactive way with games, songs and activities with lots of talking and moving around! The workshop will be at the library for three consecutive afternoons of three hours each, from 2 to 5 pm.

Please contact the front desk to sign up by phone: 02 41 24 97 07 or email: info@ellia.org. Limited to 15 participants so sign-up fast! Cost is 75 euros (includes snack, materials and library membership).

Feel like you need some air! Believe us, we hear you! Get on those hiking boots and take some time to revel in the great outdoors! For this last Walk and Talk before the summer break, the committee is organising an all-day walk so please bring your picnic!

The objective of Walk and Talk is to discover, or re-discover, the beautiful hiking paths of the Maine-et-Loire. Come along with good walking shoes, protection against the rain or the sun depending on the weather, a bottle of water and a little “en-cas”, in addition to your picnic, to keep you going! Maximum group is 20 so be sure to sign up!

Open to library members only. Sign up by sending your name, email address and phone number (preferably cell phone) to the group leader by clicking here. You will be sent full details for the upcoming walk.

The Saturday Reading Group is for anyone who loves to read, socialize in English, and meet new people.

The June read for the group is The Children Act by Ian McEwan. Fiona Maye is a leading High Court judge, presiding over cases in the family court. She is renowned for her fierce intelligence, exactitude and sensitivity. But her professional success belies private sorrow and domestic strife. There is the lingering regret of her childlessness, and now, her marriage of thirty years is in crisis. At the same time, she is called on to try an urgent case: for religious reasons, a beautiful seventeen-year-old boy, Adam, is refusing the medical treatment that could save his life, and his devout parents share his wishes. Time is running out. Should the secular court overrule sincerely held faith? In the course of reaching a decision Fiona visits Adam in hospital – an encounter which stirs long-buried feelings in her and powerful new emotions in the boy. Her judgment has momentous consequences for them both.

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.

“Books and Tea” is a monthly meeting for bookworms and tea drinkers. Until further notice according to Covid protocol, this activity will be discussion only, sorry no tea! Bring a book you’ve really enjoyed, talk about it and pass it on! The group will meet on this day at “La Cour”. No need to sign up, just come and enjoy! 6 participants maximum, first come, first serve!

Meet Nicole Guyon at the library on Thursday 24 June any time between 4:00 and 6:00 pm. She’ll be delighted to share about her art with you! Her exhibition, “Diversity of Nature” will be from June 24 to July 10, 2021. The exhibition is free and open to the public.

Nicole Guyon has been painting for 25 years. She often exhibits her artwork and participates in many painting contests. She has won several prizes in Maine-et-Loire and beyond. She is very enthusiastic to have been awarded two prizes by the French Pastellists Society in Paris. During the International Pastels Exhibition in Limoges, she was selected among the best pastellist students. She was also chosen among more than one thousand European candidates to participate in the final European Pastel Congress Competition in Paris.  She has worked with master pastellists such as Alberto, Richard Heitz and Peter Thomas.

Nicole loves to play with colors and shapes to create her paintings. She draws her inspiration from nature, beauty and various “ambiances”. She enjoys working with pastel for its purity and intense colors and, with watercolor, for its lightness. Even if her figurative style seems to be in contradiction with contemporary abstract painting, this artistic style reflects who she is. She strongly feels that she owes it to herself and to the public to be faithful to her authenticity.

The sensations that paintings create fascinate Nicole. She is amazed by the light that illuminates people’s heart as well as by the hope and love they bring to their soul. Painting is also a wonderful way of escaping. It is a therapy essential to her everyday life. She agrees with the saying “if art doesn’t cure, art is a therapy that contributes to a better life”.

The May read for the book club is “I, Claudius” by Robert Graves.

Despised for his weakness and regarded by his family as little more than a stammering fool, the nobleman Claudius quietly survives the bloody purges and mounting cruelty of the imperial Roman dynasties. In I, Claudius he watches from the sidelines to record the reigns of its emperors: from the wise Augustus and his villainous wife Livia to the sadistic Tiberius and the insane excesses of Caligula. Written in the form of Claudius’ autobiography, this is the first part of Robert Graves’s brilliant account of the madness and debauchery of ancient Rome.

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

Join the library community for a special moment to talk about anything and everything…in English of course! For the time being, we are inviting everyone to come and socialize but will not be serving drinks in order to keep everyone safe! This is Coffee House with a “hold the coffee” protocol! Things will get better but meanwhile no coffee or tea!

Coffee House is free and open to all library members. Just drop by, no need to reserve!