Patsy Jamieson, President
Patsy Jamieson, originally from Ontario, worked as a stagiare (trainee) in Paris at La Varenne École de Cuisine, where she earned Le Grand Diplôme d’Études Culinaires. During this time, while she worked at the school by day, she took French classes at the Alliance Française in the evenings.
She spent most of her career in magazine publishing. She worked as test kitchen director for Canadian Living and test kitchen director/food editor for EatingWell. There, working with the editorial team, she learned the importance of strong communication and collaboration. Currently, she teaches cooking classes and organizes excursions to Quebec for OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute) at the University of Vermont.
She has been a member of the AFLCR since 2016 and has taken classes at every session since then. As a volunteer, she contributed culinary creations to special events, including the Celebration of Francophonie dinner, the Dessert Extravaganzas, and guest lectures. She shares French and Québécois recipes in the AFLCR’s monthly newsletter. She is committed to ensuring the continued quality of education at the AFLCR and contributing to the vitality of its community. She can be reached at pjamieson@aflcr.org.
Patsy will serve as co-president until March 2025.
Janet Biehl, Vice President
Janet Biehl is an editor, author, graphic artist, and translator. A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, she earned degrees from Wesleyan University and CUNY Graduate Center. She has no personal French background but has a passion for language. Over five decades, she has copyedited thousands of books for New York book publishers, first as a New York resident, then after she moved to Burlington in 1987, as a telecommuter. She is the author of Ecology or Catastrophe: The Life of Murray Bookchin (Oxford, 2016), the biography of a noted author (and Burlington resident) who was her partner and collaborator until his death in 2006.
Since 2011 she has been involved with the Kurdish freedom movement. In the 2010s she translated several Kurdish-themed books from German to English (published by Pluto Press). More recently, she wrote and illustrated a graphic memoir about her month in Syrian Kurdistan: Their Blood Got Mixed: Revolutionary Rojava and the War Against ISIS (PM Press, 2022). She co-coordinated the translation of Gültan Kısanak’s The Purple Color of Kurdish Politics (Pluto, 2023).
Since 2022 she has managed the AFLCR’s website (editing, layout, artwork) and published the Alliance’s monthly newsletter. You can reach her at jbiehl@aflcr.org.
Janet will serve as co-president until March 2025.
Marjorie London, Secretary
Marjorie London has been a Francophile since taking her first French class in high school. French was her college major. She spent her junior year in France and, after college, worked at the United Nations with French-speaking people. Her career took a turn when she went to law school. After some thirty years working as a lawyer, she retired to Vermont. Several trips to France over the years rekindled her passion for French language and culture. Since retiring, she has taken a number of French classes with the Alliance Française and, during the pandemic, participated in a number of online activities.
Marjorie brings to the board a passion for French language and culture. In her professional life, she had significant experience in organizational leadership roles and in dispute resolution techniques. She uses her legal skills and her enthusiasm for expanding networks among English and French-speaking people in support of the AFLCR. She considers the French School to be a critically important part of the Alliance and enjoys addressing the challenges that the organization faces.
Marjorie previously served on the board of the Bixby Library in Vergennes, made presentations in support of the Humane Society in Middlebury, and volunteered for various projects at the Bixby Library and the Charlotte Senior Center. She can be reached at secretary@aflcr.org.
Bill Pence, Treasurer
Bill Pence earned a master’s degree in social work from the University of Maryland and a master’s in business administration from the University of Baltimore.He moved to Vermont in 1984, serving as business manager for Planned Parenthood for 4 years. Thereafter he was the business manager for Howard Center for 25 years.
He retired in 2018 and volunteers for the Charlotte Recreation Department and the Flynn Theater. At times, he is a community mentor to a local resident. He feels retirement is the most unusual trip he has ever taken—less stressful and more flexible, a different pace in life that is usually enjoyable.
He stays active with pickleball, walking with friends, and trying to get out and exercise. He participates in several local French conversation groups each week, and feels that learning French is a lifelong process. He is married to a retired social worker and has a son living in the area with two lively granddaughters. Bill can be reached at treasurer@aflcr.org.
Dana Baron, Director
Dana Baron has been a member of AFLCR for many years and has taken many courses with the Alliance. He especially enjoys the courses devoted to literature.
Dana’s love of French language and culture grows out of his Québécois heritage. His grandfather came to New Hampshire from Québec in the 1920s seeking work in the mills. With this as a starting point, Dana began a genealogical journey that led back through time down the St. Lawrence River to Ile d’Orléans where the first Baron ancestor arrived from Normandy in the 1670s. Wanting to continue the journey, he decided to learn to speak French so he could pick up the trail on the other side of the Atlantic. In 2009, he got the opportunity to do so. Though he found no new genealogical information, he still recalls the first time he knocked on a door and had to speak French to the woman who answered.
The AFLCR played a major role in building Dana’s dream of speaking French. He was active with AFLCR in the past, working on events and activities: the Burlington International Festival, the former annual Vergennes French Celebration, trips to Québec, and more. Now he’s glad to be giving more to the organization. A strong and healthy language school; fun and interesting activities; conversation groups; a strong sense of community built around a love of French language and culture—these are what Dana works toward as a member of the AFLCR board.
After a career in IT, Dana retired in 2017 and recently moved from Essex to Shelburne with his wife Karen. He can be reached at dbaron@aflcr.org.
Beth Brodie, Director
Beth Brodie is a lifelong teacher of French and Spanish in Vermont. She realized she was destined to be a world language teacher in middle school, when she found herself passing notes with friends in French! That kind of daily relevance influenced her teaching—her motto is “Language is for speaking, but you might as well have fun while you’re doing it.” She majored in Romance languages at Bowdoin College, spending her junior year abroad at the Université Grenoble Alpes.
In the mid-1980s Beth attained her MAT in French from the School for International Training and began a 22-year teaching career at Wilmington Middle/High School, in southern Vermont, where she raised her children. In 2009 she came north to the Burlington area to attain her doctorate in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies. Having fallen in love with “the big city,” she has made Burlington her home ever since. She taught French and Spanish at Edmunds Middle School, then in 2016 accepted the position of school principal at Ferrisburgh Community School.
Now retired, she subs at local schools and devotes her time to her grandchildren, her gardens, and her new puppy Belle. She remains committed to promoting French and Francophone culture in the Lake Champlain region. She enjoys being a member of the Burlington-Honfleur Sister Cities committee and travels often to France and Québec. On y va, oui? She can be reached at bbrodie@aflcr.org.
Pamela Hunt, Director
Pamela Hunt has fostered a lifelong love of language, having studied French, Spanish, and Latin in high school, then French, Russian, and a semester of Arabic at Boston University. Moving to Vermont in 2005, and frequently spending time north of the border in Québec, rekindled her interest in being able to communicate in French more fluently. She joined the AFLCR in 2016 and has greatly enjoyed its numerous grammar, conversational, and literature classes and events, as well as the strong sense of community among the membership.
Her career as a freelance copyeditor, proofreader, and writer grew from a passion for grammar, which has helped her navigate some of the trickier aspects of the French language (bonjour, subjonctif!). She believes that the best way to improve one’s language skills is through speaking with others and has worked to grow the AFLCR’s reach into conversational groups and other social gatherings, through which members and other francophones can get to know each other better and strengthen our already vibrant community.
In addition to serving on the AFLCR Events Committee, Pam also volunteers frequently at City Market and spends as much time as possible exploring the outdoors with her dogs, improving her photography skills, and traveling, particularly to locales where she can immerse herself in French. She can be reached at phunt@aflcr.org.