Archives: Events

Time to get outside! Get on those hiking boots and take some time to revel in the great outdoors! The idea is to organise an easy walk once a month – approximately 10 km, 2 to 3 hours, in the afternoon – in order to discover or re-discover the beautiful hiking paths of the Maine-et-Loire. Come along with good walking shoes, protection against rain, cold or heat according to the season…. a bottle of water and a little “en-cas” to keep you going ! Maximum group is 20 so make sure to sign up!

Want to sign up? Easy as pie!

Sign up by sending your name, email address and phone numbers (perferably cell phone) to this email address. You will be sent full details of the walk in due time.
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The Saturday Reading Group is for anyone who loves to read, socialize in English, and meet new people. Come join us on March 4th at 3pm at the library. There is the line-up of great reading for 2016-2017! Click here for full schedule and line-up of titles 2016-2017. 

The March selection is the book “The Silver Linings Playbook” by Matthew Quick. During the years he spends in a neural health facility, Pat Peoples formulates a theory about silver linings: he believes his life is a movie produced by God, his mission is to become physically fit and emotionally supportive, and his happy ending will be the return of his estranged wife Nikki. When Pat goes to live with his parents everything seems changed; no one will talk to him about Nikki; his old friends are saddled with families; the Philadelphia Eagles keep losing, making his father moody; and his new therapist seems to be recommending adultery as a form of therapy. When Pat meets the tragically widowed, physically fit, and clinically depressed Tiffany, she offers to act as a liaison between him and his wife, if only he will give up watching football, agree to perform in this year’s Dance Away Depression competition, and promise not to tell anyone about their ‘contract.’ All
the while, Pat keeps searching for his silver lining.

When and where: Meetings will be held in the library once a month on Saturday afternoons starting at 3:00. Cost: FREE to all members of the library. To join: Please contact Anne Kaar at bookgroup@ellia.org

Every year France organises a celebration of poetry called the “Printemps des poètes” and for the 2017 celebration there is a focus on African poets and poetry. The library is pleased to offer a display of books with 10 favorite African poets and 10 favorite African-American poets.

Highlights happening at the library are:

March 4th – 28th: Exhibition of books of African and African-American poets.

March 4th -28th: Exhibition of paintings of Philippe de Latour. Take a minute to come and see this stunning wash of colors and large canvases. In collaboration with the MIEL.

Thursday, March 16th – reading in French by the Algrian poet Samira Negrouche in collaboration with the MIEL. Samira Negrouche is mainly known for her poetry, but also for her prose, her academic and dramatic texts, and her other creative writings. The author received a scholarship from the National Book Centre to pursue a stage in France during 2004 and 2005. In 2012, she edited contemporary Algerian poetry written in French for the review “Ici è là”, and prepared a compilation of contemporary Algerian poetry written in Arabic, Tamazight and French, for the Quebecer magazine of poetry “Exit”. Evening starts at 7 pm. Free and open to the public.

You can sign up to take your TOEIC test here in the library. To sign up please consult the ETS website. Dates for 2017 for the Listening and Reading version of the TOEIC are 28/03, 25/04, 09/05, 30/05 & 13/06.

The February read for the bookclub is “Anna of the Five Towns” by Arnold Bennett. ‘Deeply moving, original, and dealing with material that I had never encountered in fiction, but only in life’ – Margaret Drabble. Growing up in the world of the ‘five towns’ of industrial England, with their furnaces and chimneys, huddled red-brown streets, prayer meetings and small-minded bigotry, Anna is dominated by her miserly and tyrannical father. When she inherits a fortune and finds love, she struggles to break free from the constraints upon her, even though she is torn between duty and her deepest feelings. Arnold’s novel of parental tyranny and rebellion is a portrayal of a woman of great spirit, complexity and integrity.

For any enquiries about joining the bookclub please send an email by clicking here.

The Gardenclub invites its members and anyone new who would like to join for this meeting to schedule this coming year’s visits from May to October. After discussing the planning, the group will celebration with the great cake extravaganza. Please send an email to gardenclub@ellia.org for more information and/or to sign up for this event. This activity is free and open to all current members of the library.

This theater workshop for young adults between the ages of 11-14 takes place in the library and runs over three consecutive afternoons of three hours each. This is a wonderful way for kids to have fun learning English through theatre games and lots of speaking and moving around. Cost is 75 euros (includes snack, materials and library membership). Please contact the front desk to sign up. Limited to 15.

The next film club event will be a showing of “Thelma and Louise” by Ridley Scott. “Thelma & Louise” is in the expansive, visionary tradition of the American road picture. It celebrates the myth of two carefree souls piling into a 1956 T-Bird and driving out of town to have some fun and raise some hell. We know the road better than that, however, and we know the toll it exacts: Before their journey is done, these characters with have undergone a rite of passage, and will have discovered themselves.

Screening begins at 15:00 sharp. This activity is free of charge for all library members. Please reserve by signing up at the front desk in advance. A discussion in English will follow the film.

Treat yourself to an afternoon of a collective reading of Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor and Henry the Fourth. The activity consists of watching a BBC production on DVD and then reading relative scenes. This is a great activity for lovers of language and fans of the great wit. The activity is free for library members. Please sign up at the front desk.

Love those French restaurants? Feel like you need to speak English more but in a relaxed atmosphere? Join this club which schedules a lunch in a great local restaurant. This event takes place on the second Tuesday of the month. Click here to send an email to the coordinator for more information and the full schedule and to sign up!