Reference words: it, this, they

For more than a hundred years, the village of Elmbury had one small shop. It sold bread, newspapers and almost everything else that people needed from day to day. A few years ago, the owners, Ruth and David Hale, decided to retire. They tried to sell the business, but nobody wanted to buy it.

This was bad news for the village. The nearest supermarket is eleven kilometres away, and the bus goes there only twice a day. Older residents were especially worried, because many of them do not drive. For them, the shop was not just a place to buy milk. It was also a place to meet friends and catch up on local news.

So the villagers made an unusual decision: they would buy the shop themselves. More than 150 people each paid £50 or more to become members, and the local council lent them some money. Such shops, owned by the people who use them, already existed in other parts of the country, but this was the first one in the area.

Today the shop is run by two paid staff and a team of volunteers, who each work one or two mornings a week. The volunteers do more than serve customers. They also deliver shopping to people who cannot leave their homes. On Fridays, they run a coffee morning, which has become the busiest event of the week.

Any money that the shop makes goes back into the village. Ruth Hale, who now works there as a volunteer herself, is delighted. “We thought the shop would close for ever,” she says. “Instead, it belongs to everyone.”

Two years ago, Brightwell, a small design company, tried an experiment. On Fridays, its forty employees were not allowed to send emails to each other. If they needed to ask a colleague something, they had to phone them or walk over to their desk.

The idea came from the company's director, Nadia Price. She had noticed that her staff spent hours every day reading and answering messages, and many of these were sent to people who sat only a few metres away. “People had stopped talking to each other,” she explains. “The office was full, but it was completely silent.”

At first, not everyone liked the rule. Some designers said that they found phone calls stressful. Others worried that they would forget decisions if nothing was written down. To solve these problems, the company set up a shared online board, which showed every decision that was made during the day.

After six months, the results were clear. Staff said that they felt less tired at the end of the week, and they solved problems faster because they could discuss them face to face. Such conversations also helped new employees, who learned a lot by listening to their more experienced colleagues.

The experiment was not perfect. Customers still sent emails on Fridays, and most of them expected a quick reply. Brightwell therefore made one exception: staff could still email people outside the company. Today, the rule is still in place, and Nadia has no plans to change it. “Our staff talk to each other again,” she says. “That is worth more than an empty inbox.”

To: All staff

From: Laura Kent, Office Manager

Subject: New printers

Dear colleagues,

Two new printers arrived this morning, ___(1)___ is good news because the old ones often broke down. ___(2)___ are on the second floor, next to the kitchen. Each printer has a touch screen, and ___(3)___ instructions are on the wall above it.

To print, you now need your staff card. Hold ___(4)___ against the reader on the right-hand side of the printer, and your document will print. ___(5)___ system means that nobody can pick up your papers by mistake.

If you have any problems, please contact Tom Reed in IT. ___(6)___ will be happy to help.

Best wishes,

Laura