ACTIVITIES
This month, our picnic/pétanque event will take place on Sunday, January 14, at Mead Botanical Garden, as usual, starting at 12:30 pm, with a potluck lunch, followed by pétanque (French ball game) matches.
Regarding our school, our picnic on December 10th was a great success. The children had lots of fun participating in the special activities prepared for them.
The Saturday activity class will take place on January 13th, from 9:00 to 11:00 am. Theme: Galette des rois/King’s cake.
A free Family Potluck Movie Night is scheduled on January 13th, from 6:00 to 9:00 pm. The movie “La reine des neiges” (Frozen) will be played.
A new option of French classes is now offered by AFGO. For a slightly higher tuition, adults as well as children aged 12 to 17 years old, can now enroll in classes on Saturday afternoon and Sunday.
Also, we are pleased to announce that, in December, our school modernized its equipment by investing in new tables for each classroom and two interactive boards. This will benefit both our students and our teachers, as technology is a very important tool in learning/teaching today.
Season 30 of the “Discover France and its Culture” lectures, devoted to Alsace, will end on January 20. It will be followed, starting on January 26 in English, and January 27 in French, by the Lorraine region, another part of Eastern France.
For more details about this program and our school courses, as well as registration, please. consult our website: www.aforlando.org, or Delphine, our School Administrator, at: thecours2francais@gmail.com.
This month, our movie night will take place on Saturday, January 27, at AFGO’s office. It will start at 6:30 pm with a potluck dinner, followed by the projection of a French movie, subtitled in English. Around mid-January, an email with all the details will be sent out.
A NEW BOOK
On October 21, the Annual Meeting of AFGO members took place. After the review of the 2022-2023 fiscal year activities and financial results, a new Board of Directors was elected. It included Marie Oury, our new AFGO Library Management Director.
Marie recently published a book called Raymond: 1939 mon grand-père alsacien avait 20 ans. This book is a captivating autobiography that tells the story of Raymond Oury, a young man about to start his career as a schoolteacher when World War II broke out. The annexation of Alsace, his native region, by the Third Reich changed his destiny. The Nazi regime ruling over Alsace forced Raymond to take part in the Umschulung, a Nazi conversion program and sent him to teach in Germany for two years. Then, in 1943, the regime drafted him against his will into the Wehrmacht, the German army, like 130.000 other Alsatians- Mosellans youth, who found themselves fighting, with 40.000 of them dying, for a cause that was not their own.
Marie Oury, historian and Raymond’s granddaughter, enriched the biography with historical notes, adding context and an interesting historical perspective to the account. The maps, documents, and photographs included in the book also place the story at the heart of World War II, offering the reader an immersive and educational experience.
The book is available only in French. For more details, please check the website https://raymondoury.com or contact Marie at contact@raymondoury.com