Le Cercle Français meets via Zoom teleconferencing from 7:30 to 9:00 PM (US Eastern Time) every other Wednesday for informal conversation in French.  There's no charge for attending the meetings.  Meeting attendees have various levels of proficiency; some are quite fluent, or even native speakers, while others mostly listen.  However, no English is spoken, and no lessons are given.  The easiest way to find out if you are interested is to attend one or two meetings, with no obligation.

"Meetings" during COVID-19 "Social Isolation": Our meetings have historically been held face-to-face, but as of March 25, 2020, we are conducting virtual meetings via Zoom teleconferencing. If you are on our mailing list, you will receive a Zoom email "invitation" message in advance. It will give you the date and time of the next meeting, and a link to follow at the appointed time to "join" the meeting.

From the first Sunday in November to the second Sunday in March, "Eastern Time" means "Eastern Standard Time" (EST), which is UTC-05:00. Otherwise, "Eastern Time" means "Eastern Daylight Time" (EDT), which is UTC-04:00. I'm clarifying this because since we've been meeting virtually via Zoom, we have had participants from outside the US.

Click here to send me an e-mail message if you would like to be added to our mailing list, or would like more information.

Additional details:

You may attend some sessions and not others.  If a meeting is canceled, the remaining schedule is not altered, to allow people to plan ahead.

There are no assigned books or pre-determined topics of conversation.  We do sometimes attach a brief article in French to the meeting announcement, to serve as one of the possible topics of discussion.  This allows you to brush up on related vocabulary in advance of the meeting, if you'd like.  However, reading the article before the meeting is entirely optional, and consideration of the article will only be one portion of the evening's discussion.

Our e-mail list is never shared with anyone else, and those on the list will almost never receive more than one or two messages a week. At the bottom of every message there are instructions as to how to have your name removed from the list.

For a personal recollection of how I came to join this discussion group way back in 1980, see my blog entry entitled Le Cercle Français.

How it worked when we met in person (we do hope to get back to this some day):  All meetings were held in the vicinity of Wayland, Massachusetts (USA), on alternate Wednesdays, from 7:30 to 9:00 PM (US Eastern time).  On the Wednesday between meetings, an e-mail message was sent out asking who could attend the following week.  Then on the Monday before the meeting, a message was sent giving the location, with driving directions (or canceling the meeting, if too few could make it).

After attending a few sessions, many members volunteered to host the group from time to time, which involves serving light refreshments, although we do have members for whom hosting is not possible.  Too bad we can't serve refreshments during Zoom meetings.