- The Alliance Française
- 7th July 2019
The Alliance Française of York is a charity created in 1994 located in Bootham, York.
We aim to promote and widen access to French language and culture and to encourage a friendly dialogue between cultures through education and cultural exchanges.
We offer French classes of course but also a variety of cultural events around French culture and language such as movie nights, conversations, monthly talks etc.
All the people working at the Alliance are French-or 'serious' Francophiles- so we have a “real” knowledge of the culture and language.
We really wanted to make our charity more visible, give something special to our members, and reinforce our community with the bags. We dreamt of our members going shopping with our bags (and maybe meeting/recognising each other in a fun and unexpected way!). We are not a big organisation but we try to do our best for the environment even on a small-scale (which is what everybody should do! Small steps are key!)
We are very fortunate to have been working with a local graphic artist named Linda Combi. You can find her website here: http://lindacombi.biz/lc_welcome.php or look her up on Facebook at “Linda Combi Illustration”, her designs are unique and colourful.
We immediately loved the designs she created for us, the colours were vibrant and the images were so French! Especially the rooster, a French emblem, saying “Je pense donc je suis” meaning “I think therefore I am”, it really is everyone’s favourite. The other bag represents our very famous “Cafés conversation”, that we hold twice a week, bringing together Francophones and Francophiles. The meetings are held in a café and we all talk -like good old friends- about everything and anything, in French!
While we were reviewing different options for the bags, Bidbi immediately stood out! We appreciated the fact that the bags are printed in the UK, and had a great communication with every one working there; we really felt like they were very attentive to our needs. Emma was very patient considering we had a lot of questions! We were also pleasantly surprised because they were also the cheapest! The free samples we received, without any fuss, after a query are really what made us choose Bidbi. Not only the package arrived extremely fast but the quality of the bag and printing were perfect! We would definitely order from them again if needed, and we highly recommend BIDBI to everyone!
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