to Oct 9. Are you learning to speak English? Would you like to practice expressing yourself in conversations about common topics, in a small, friendly group? Join our ELL Conversation Circles on the second Wednesday of the month, in person only. Parents are welcome to bring children. Children may participate in our conversation or play with Lego. Free! Drop in, no registration.
Tag: library
Word Whips—Creative Writing Workshops with Fran Bourassa
Calling all poets, writers, and would-be writers of all ages and experience levels! Bypass your inner “editor” to find your authentic voice. Practice “free writing” short pieces from “word whip” prompts, that elicit memories, emotions, and powerful ideas for poetry and stories. This method is quick, powerful, and everyone can enjoy it. Fran Bourassa is an award-winning poet and contributing writer to numerous anthologies, including Breaking the Surface, Pacific Poetry Anthology, Force Field: 77 BC Poets. Free but space is limited (in person only). Registration is required; register online or call the Library at 604-886-2130.
How to Stay Safe Online: A TELUS Wise® Workshop for Seniors
Get the most out of participating in our growing digital society, safely. Learn how to keep your online information secure and avoid scams.
TELUS WISE® Seniors is an Internet safety program meant for seniors who are already using the Internet (e.g. email, surfing the Internet). Through this interactive, conversational program, our goal is to help you keep yourself, your family and your community safer online.
Presenter: Manjit Kang, TELUS Community Ambassador.
FREE but space is limited (in person only). Registration is required; register online or call the Library at 604-886-2130.
Book Club: Tom Lake
Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
Come discuss the latest novel by Ann Patchett, “Tom Lake.”
At her grown daughters’ request, Lara recalls her youthful acting career, and the romance she had at Tom Lake summer theatre with a wild young man who later became very famous. A rich and luminous novel told with intelligence and emotional subtlety, Tom Lake is an elegiac yet hopeful meditation on fame and family, youthful and married love, and the lives parents led before their children were born. Come join our discussion. Ask at the Library Checkout Desk for a special Book Club copy. Free but space is limited; contact the Library at 604-886-2130 or register online.
Documentary Film Screening: Water on the Table with Liz Marshall
Featuring activist Maude Barlow ’s crusade to have water declared a human right, protected from privatization, this award-winning documentary explores Canada’s relationship to its freshwater, arguably our most precious natural resource.
Written, directed, and produced by award-winning local filmmaker Liz Marshall, who will be in attendance for the screening, Q&A and discussion following. (2010, 80 minutes)
FREE but space is limited (in person only); register online or call the Library at 604-886-2130.
Advance Care Planning Workshop
Advance care planning helps you have a say in the health care you would like to receive if you get very sick and cannot speak for yourself. In this workshop, presenters from Sunshine Coast Hospice will introduce you to the Sunshine Coast Green Sleeve and explore the steps involved in making an advance care plan. Putting a plan in place will help ensure you get the care you want, and it will help your family at a difficult time. Presenters: Joan Hibbard and Jackie Scott, Sunshine Coast Hospice Society.
Free but in-person space is limited. Registration is required to attend in person: please register online or call the Library at 604-886-2130. This workshop is also accessible live via Zoom from the Library’s website.
Poetry Reading & Talk: Cathy Stonehouse
Dream House: A Poem
Part Tardis, part townhouse, part Howl’s Moving Castle, Dream House is a long poem in six sections that interrogates what metaphor might hold of personal and social history after a mother’s passing.
“Stonehouse nails what it’s like to bring ghosts who will not rest from one hallucinatory place to the next. This is a deeply affecting collection you will not want to miss.” –Elizabeth Bachinsky, author of The Hottest Summer in Recorded History
Free but in-person space is limited; contact the Library to register or register below. Also accessible live via Zoom from the Library’s website.
Repair Café
Bring your small appliances and other items for free repairs. Volunteers will help you bring new life to your old appliances.
In person only. Drop-in; space is limited; first come first served.
Hosts: Wayne Harjula & Fred Mason
Gibsons Library: Seasonal Singalong
Come raise some holiday spirit by singing along with traditional and favourite Christmas carols and seasonal songs.
Lyrics will be provided, and songs will be led and accompanied on keyboard so we will sound glorious together. Not a performance, just having fun in our own indoor “winter wonderland”.
All ages, all heritages, and all voices welcome. Young and old, divas and shower singers, we want you!
In person only. Drop in, no registration required. Free!
Gibsons Library: Movie at the Library: The Little Mermaid
Ariel is a young mermaid curious about life beyond the sea. When she meets Prince Eric she makes a deal with the evil Ursula to experience life on land. This is the 2023 live-action adaptation of the 1989 Disney movie.
Drop in. No registration required.
Rated PG, 2hr 15min
Book Club: Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
In 1960s California, sexism derails Elizabeth Zott’s career from chemist to TV cooking show host. But her scientific approach creates a smash hit, as she encourages women to subvert the status quo.
Laugh-out-loud funny and shrewdly observant, Lessons in Chemistry is now the basis of a popular new TV series. Come join our discussion.
Repair Café
Don’t buy new. Fix the old! Repair Café is back!
We’re excited to host the Repair Cafe again. Bring your small appliances and other items for free repairs. Volunteers will help you bring new life to your old appliances.
In person only. Drop-in; space is limited; first come first served.
Hosts: Wayne Harjula & Fred Mason
Documentary Film Screening: The Ghosts in Our Machine with Liz Marshall
This award-winning documentary gently illuminates the plight of many animals — from captive foxes to rescued dairy cows— within the machines of our food, fashion, entertainment, and biomedical research industries, through the lens of animal rights photojournalist Jo-Anne McArthur.
Written, directed, and produced by award-winning local filmmaker Liz Marshall, who will be in attendance for the screening, Q&A and discussion following. (2013, 93 minutes)
FREE but space is limited (in person only); register online or contact the Library.
What Can I See Up There? Night Skies from the Sunshine Coast
RASC National Past President Charles Ennis shows you what you can see in the sky from our Sunshine Coast, what stands in the way of that observing (and how to fix it), and where to go to get started. Learn how best to view the exciting Geminid meteor shower in mid-December! If weather permits, Charles and his fellow astronomers will set up their telescopes on the Library’s deck for everyone to try.
Presented in partnership with the Sunshine Coast Centre of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC).
FREE but space is limited; registration is recommended. Register online or contact the Library.
Did you know…you can borrow the Library’s Telescope?
Author Reading: Maureen Mayhew
Hand on my heart: a Canadian doctor’s awakening in Afghanistan
Join Maureen Mayhew on a voyage to remote corners of Taliban-occupied Afghanistan. Her new memoir examines cultural assumptions around gender, tradition and belief as she reflects on life-changing experiences working as a foreign female in one of the world’s least understood countries.
Maureen Mayhew is a family doctor, a clinical professor at UBC, and a certified leadership coach. She spent a decade supporting Afghans to rebuild their shattered healthcare system, and to improve maternal and child health.
Free but space is limited; contact the Library or register online. Also accessible live via Zoom from the Library’s website.
Book Launch & Group Reading: Memoir & More Anthology
This anthology by local authors is a beautiful collection of poetry and prose, writing from life experience, excerpts of childhood memories to summer jobs and everything in between.
Authors include:
Anne Miles
Anne Simonet
Atma Frans
Carol Stewart (In Memoriam)
Del Lobo
Denise Olson
Dennise Dombroski
Maggie Guzzi
Sherryl Latimer
Free but space is limited: contact the Library or register online. Also accessible live via Zoom from the Library’s website.
Hospice House: Group Reading: Living with Grief, hosted by David Roche
Grief can be a challenging companion. This fall, a small but brave and mighty group met weekly with facilitator David Roche to write about engaging with their grief, to connect with each other, and to find their own voices.
Join us at Hospice House, where brave readers will include Katie Burau, Colin Curtis, Bill Elsner, and Kate McLaughlin. Listen to the group’s participants share their heartfelt and moving stories.
Call in advance (604) 740-0475 to reserve your spot for this intimate evening.
This program received funding support from the District of Sechelt.
Come Write In Session – NaNoWriMo
Weekly to Nov 23. Could you write a novel in a month? Try the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) challenge: sign up online at www.nanowrimo.org
Whether or not you take the challenge or sign up for NaNoWriMo, you’re invited to Come Write In for some quiet writing time here at the Library every Thursday in November. Work on any writing you wish, with wifi, tea, and encouragement from your fellow writers.
Facilitator: Marissa Fischer
FREE, drop in, no registration required.
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