Archives: Events

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!

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.

Join us for our ever-popular game night and pizza party! Cost is 7 euros (covers pizza and non-alcoholic drinks, 5 euros for native English speakers and children under 13). Event starts at 6 pm sharp. Last entry at 6:15 pm. First come, first serve with 40 participants max. Children under 13 need to be accompanied by an adult.

The library is honored to have a keynote speaker for a last of our series of talks for the program “Think Big, Think Green”: Kate Snipes. Kate works for the Foreign Agricultural Service at the US Embassy in Paris and will be talking about new US initiatives in agriculture to address climate change and sustainability.

This will be a 40-minute talk followed by a question-and-answer session. This talk is free and open to the public and will be accessible by Zoom. Click here for Zoom link. We will be letting people into the Zoom session starting at 9:45.

“Thing Big, Think Green” has an exciting project for the library to focus on creating a trans-Atlantic discussion about sustainability. The program has included Zoom meetings between students, workshops, tours of farms, keynote speakers and a pertinent selection of books. The hopes were to create a forum to support an exchange on how we can make our food consumption more sustainable, healthier and more respectful of the planet Earth. “Think Big, Thing Green” is a timely opportunity for the library’s community to engage in discussion about the future! This program has been made possible with the support of the Embassy of the United States of America, France.

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!