Croydon Social Language Club Newsletter

MurielB Lun 30 Sep - 22:46

CROYDON SOCIAL LANGUAGE CLUB

http://www.croydonslc.org.uk/

Email for enquiries: croydonslclub@gmail.com

NEWSLETTER

Late Summer 2019

We hope you’re enjoying the summer. Although it’s the time of year for holidays, remember we aren’t taking a summer break (apart from bank holiday Monday) and you’re always welcome to come along. In this newsletter we review developments and events at the Club since the last newsletter and point to one or two things happening in the future. There are two dates for your diary – 7^th October for the Autumn Social and 26^th-28^th June 2020, the weekend of next year’s Polyglot Picnic in Calais. The latter is still a long way off but we hope the description of this year’s picnic (see below) will whet your appetite. French speakers will be interested in Cécile’s item on the Cercle Français de Sutton – for further information, please see her on Club night or contact us so we can put you in touch with her.

WEBSITE AND EMAIL ADDRESS

We now have a website! Click on the link shown above. Thanks to all involved in its creation, especially Peter, Cécile and Barnaby and also Roger Haworth who has given freely of his time and expertise although not a Club member. Please take a look at it and send the link to friends and others who you think may be interested in the Club. Your comments would be welcome. You will see that that we have also set up a Club email address. For the moment, this is only for new enquirers and the secretary will continue to use her existing email for other Club business. However, we hope that in due course, if practical, it will become our email address for all purposes.

We would like to use the internet and social media more to generate interest in Club. If anyone has any experience of setting up e.g. a Facebook page or an entry on Meetup, please let us know.

AGM

The AGM was held on 18^th March. There was a good attendance. The committee was re-elected and is as follows –

President – David Urry

Treasurer – John Boaler

Secretary - Thérèse Herbert

Members - Maggie Pick, John Summerskill, Cécile Bradwell, Jackie Stoner and Barnaby Powell.

The formal business over, we were treated to a buffet which provided a more relaxed atmosphere in which to continue our discussions of the Club’s affairs (and, of course, just to enjoy ourselves!).

NEW DICTIONARIES

It was decided at the AGM to purchase new dictionaries to replace our existing ageing tomes, as well as some maps of French, Spanish and German speaking countries. We hope to get this done in the autumn.

RESTAURANT MEAL

The Club held a dinner to celebrate spring in the quirky but comfortable surroundings of the Little Bay restaurant on 14^th May. Twelve of us attended. The food was good and everyone had an enjoyable evening. Most of our soirées take place on Club night, and rightly so, but every now and then it’s good to have an additional event where we can socialise in a different environment.

WEEK END IN CALAIS

For the second year running, a group of us went to the picnic held by the Café Polyglotte de Calais annually on the last Saturday in June. It takes place on a farm in pleasant countryside outside the town. Language clubs from all over Europe are invited, and between sixty and seventy people were there. It was a very hot day but luckily the farm has a spacious building designed for events of this nature where we could eat and chat in the cool, although we did all venture out for the group photo (see left). It was great to practice our language skills with so many native speakers and of course to let them try out their English on us. We were able to make some contacts which we hope to be able to keep up.

The Café Polyglotte always organises another event for the Sunday following the picnic and this year it was a trip by open top bus along the coast to the village of Escalles for a lunch at a sea food restaurant followed by a walk to the beach under Cap Blanc Nez.

Les quatre mousquetaires de Croydon à la plage d’Escalles

Both this year and last, we have found the weekend to be an enjoyable and worthwhile experience, not only from the point of view of meeting and having a language exchange with like-minded people from Continental Europe but also because it has given us the opportunity to explore Calais which, despite the bad publicity of recent years, is a nice town. We hope to go again next year and you are all welcome to come along, so make a note to keep the last week end in June 2020 free!

SUMMER BARBECUE

Now in its third year, our summer barbecue in the Sports Club grounds is becoming a fixture in our calendar. This year it was held on 22^nd July and once again we were lucky to have a gloriously warm sunny evening. Twenty-three people attended. Plenty of wine, and lovely salads and desserts, were provided. Thanks go to Nieves and Alan for supervising the cooking and to everyone who made culinary contributions. (We should also thank Nieves and all others who made the buffet at the AGM a success).

AUTUMN SOCIAL – 7^TH OCTOBER

Clear your diaries for Monday 7^th October when our catering team will be back in action for our Autumn Social. We hope to make this a cheese and wine evening, featuring produce from French, Spanish and German speaking nations. The secretary will circulate final details in due course.

CERCLE FRANÇAIS DE SUTTON

Nous serions très heureux de vous accueillir à notre Cercle Français de Sutton. Chaque mois, nous invitons un conférencier de langue française pour nous donner un exposé sur un sujet choisi d’avance. Notre Cercle est affilié à L’Alliance Française de Londres (www.alliancefrancaise.london). Cet organisme contrôle le déroulement des conférences et nous donne le choix des sujets et des conférenciers.

Nos réunions se tiennent en général le deuxième vendredi du mois à 19h30 au “Friends Meeting House”, 10 Cedar Road, Sutton, SM2 5DA. Ce hall est à 5 minutes de marche de la gare de Sutton. Après la conférence et les questions au conférencier, nous avons l’occasion de bavarder en français autour d’un café ou thé et de biscuits. Si vous souhaitez venir voir si le niveau de français vous convient, vous serez toujours bienvenu comme visiteur (£6,- par soirée – tarif réduit pour étudiant et “au pair”).

La première conférence aura lieu le 11 octobre et le sujet choisi concerne la Franc-maçonnerie en France.

Cécile Bradwell pourra vous donner plus de renseignements sur les futures conférences pour l’année 2019/20 si vous le désirez.

VISITS TO THE THEATRE AND CINEMA

From time to time members arrange amongst themselves to see foreign language plays or films. Some of us recently went to two French language plays, “Les Muses Orphelines” (a drama from Quebec) and Sartre’s classic “Les Mouches”. We are lucky in multicultural London to have these opportunities. If a play, film or indeed other language-related event takes your fancy and you would like to invite others to go with you, the secretary will be happy to circulate the details.

CONTACT US

If you need to contact us, please do so by ringing or emailing one of the below. New enquirers may also contact us at the email address shown on the heading to this newsletter.

David Urry – Tel 020 8680 5887 Email – david.urry369@btinternet.co.uk

Thérèse Herbert – Tel 01737 559329 Email – therbert68@hotmail.com

John Boaler – Tel 020 8657 9563 Email – johnandjean.boaler@btopenworld.com

MurielB Mar 1 Oct - 11:42

MurielB Mar 1 Oct - 15:03

Croydon Social Language Club Newsletter

Croydon Social Language Club Newsletter

Merci aux membres du Croydon Social Club d'être venus au pique-nique et à l'année prochaine

photo de groupe à la ferme