The Lexington Francophones –– A Brief History & A Personal Introduction

Hi! I'm Julie, the current organiser of the Lexington Francophones. This Meetup group was started circa 2010. I joined in 2011 in order to build my skills in conversational French. I was already conversational in Italian, and pretty decent in French, if only in the kind of French you learn in academic settings. 

In 2014, I began living abroad while working on my doctorate, a key component of which included research in French. This experience was made much easier by my time in the Lexington Francophones. I remained a regular attendee during my return trips home, and was able to join an Italian Meetup while away. I also had a small group of Francophones to practice with during weekly lunches at my college. At the end of 2019, I came home for a holiday break, and, like many others, I soon found that I could not travel back right away.

From 2014-2019, on return trips to Lexington, I was always excited to see old friends and the many new faces at the table. I became the third organiser of the Lexington Francophones in 2021, when the previous organiser stepped down after a run of five or so years. 

In the first years of the group, many of the attendees were from the numerous classes at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning, and others were from a wider community of Francophones. It was a lively group almost right away and many people spoke French from childhood, in addition to one or two other languages. 

We met at Third Street Stuff most weeks and occasionally there was a party or a film night at someone's house. Later, we met in the winter and on rainy days at the Panera on Nicholasville Rd.

When the KY Native Café opened in 2015, the beautiful outdoor setting quickly became our number one choice, and we still meet there regularly on Sundays from 2:00-4:00. Even better, they now have indoor seating in the wintertime!

We have occasionally experimented with other days of the week, and with other restaurants, cafés, and coffee houses, but the KY Native Café is hard to beat for our purposes. It was especially great to have an outdoor location after our long hiatus during 2020, when COVID meant that the group went first to an all online format before suspending meetings. During this timeframe, the group went off of the Meetup platform, and we restarted a new Meetup page for the group in 2021. 

The changes in the local community over the last few years included the departure of several of our members to their home countries, or to new adventures abroad or out-of-state. Like many other arenas, we have seen transformations in how we pursue our lives and in where we are choosing to live. As this trend continues, I expect that we will continue to see new faces in our community, and we will also experience more departures.

As Autumn 2023 begins, I am reflecting on the last two years with a sense of satisfaction that we have not entirely lost the thread of the group, which in 2020 seemed entirely possible. Other local international groups did not return, or decided to suspend their activities indefinitely. Although we have not reached our pre-COVID membership numbers, we have consistently seen interest and have had some great weekly experiences and discussions. My goal has been (and remains) to play a small (hopefully supportive and beneficial) part in each of our members' journeys, and in the journeys of those we meet during the course of our gatherings. 2023 has seen an increase in the attendance to our meetings, with many members looking to break into conversation for the first time, or to brush up on forgotten skills in preparation for travel or just for fun. Most importantly, we continue to support the goals of our members as we get to know their personalities, ideas, and motivations.