B1 reading: The town that saved its cinema

1 For almost a hundred years, the Palace was the only cinema in our small town. Families went there every weekend, and many couples had their first date in its old red seats. But a few years ago the building was in a bad state. The roof leaked, the heating often broke down, and fewer and fewer people came. Most of them were watching films at home instead. Finally, the owner announced that the Palace would close and the building would be sold.

2 Most people expected it to become flats. But a group of local residents had a different idea. Led by Chloe, a retired teacher, they asked the owner to give them one year to raise the money to buy it. He agreed.

3 What happened next surprised everyone. The group sold "shares" in the cinema for fifty pounds each, so anyone could become an owner. More than two thousand people bought them, including many who had moved away from the town years before. Local businesses gave money too, and a famous actor who grew up nearby paid for a new screen. A year later, the group had enough money to buy the building and repair the roof.

4 The new Palace is run by a small team and more than a hundred volunteers, who sell tickets, make coffee and clean the cinema. It shows new films, but also old classics, films for children on Saturday mornings and special quiet shows for parents with babies. There is a café that is open all day, and the room upstairs is used for book clubs and language classes.

5 It hasn't been easy. The cinema only just makes enough money to pay its bills, and the volunteers sometimes find it hard to cover all the hours. But last year more people came to the Palace than in any of the ten years before it closed.

6 "People don't come only for the films," says Chloe. "They come because it belongs to them. When you've helped to save something, you want to use it."