Welcome to Croydon Italian Appreciation Organisation, (CIAO).

CIAO is a club for Italians wanting to improve their English and English speakers who want to improve their Italian.

We are an informal, friendly group who share an interest in Italian and British culture and who want to speak each others' language.  

There is no joining fee and all ages and abilities are welcome. There are experts amongst us, but you will find some of our members' grasp of Italian is very basic and most members struggle to understand spoken Italian or construct proper replies. Our club is for all who want to develop or keep up their language skills.

Look at << Page 2  Festa del Film a Croydon >> to see what we've planned for November 2008 - June 2009. Our main meetings feature a free film starting at 7.30 pm on the second Wednesday of the month. These meetings start at 6.00 and end at 9.30 pm and cost 3 pounds. A <Festa Pasta Supper with Wine> is available for members from the Italian restaurant where our meetings are held.

On the day before each meeting, CIAO host a free community event, to which all are welcome. This is our monthly Italian Translation Workshop on Tuesdays at 3pm - 5pm in the Opera Cafe, Clocktower, Katharine Street. We use the Workshops as an opportunity to translate the Italian sub-titles of the film being shown on the following evening. We freeze the film whenever an Italian sub-title is shown to enable us to have time to translate into English. You may like to download the script of the first few chapters of the film in advance and bring it with you.

A new venture, Italian Films Croydon, is starting in late January. On Tuesday evenings we will be showing two performances of a series of 9 films featuring migration into and out of Italy, starting with Pummero'.

Enquiries regarding Italian lessons welcome.

For all queries, joining CIAO or booking a place at the film screenings, (highly recommended), please phone 0208 656 6096 or use the e-mail address below.