Structure of the email

 Part 1
You begin the email by asking them short questions about how they are,
what they've been doing etc... Between asking them questions, apologise for
not contacting them in a long time.
 Part 2
In this part tell them about experiences and situations that have been
happening to you or plans that you have in the future. I would also
recommend that you ask them questions connected to what you've written
about yourself. So, if you have told them something about your job, ask
them a question about theirs (e.g. 'Are you still working at .....?').
 Part 3
In this part write about and ask them questions about shared interests (e.g.
football, music etc...) or about people you both know.
 Part 4
If you are going to invite them to something (e.g. a birthday party etc...) or
you want to meet them, do it here at the end. If you are going to ask them to
do something for you (and only things which they can do very quickly!),
you should write it in this part.
 Part 5
Finish the email by saying that your are looking forward to hearing from
them. At the very end, pass on a greeting from somebody else (if you have
one) if that person has asked you to (e.g. 'Simon says hi' or 'Sarah gives her
love'

*Example
Hi John,
How are you? It's been ages since we last spoke. I hope everything is going well.
Sorry, I haven't been in contact recently. I've been meaning to write to you for
the last couple of months, but I just haven't got round to doing it. Sorry for my
laziness.
What have you been up to lately? I remember you telling me that you were
thinking about moving house. Did you do it or are you still living in the same
place?
I don't know if you've heard, but since the last time we spoke I left my job. I'm
now working at Omega in Manchester. It's a similar job to what I had before, but I
have more responsibility (and more hours unfortunately) and the pay is better
(which is nice). Are you still working at Tyson or have you changed too?
I've also bought a new car (a Honda Civic). You know how I don't like to spend
money, but I had to buy a new car after the car I had (the blue Ford escort) kept
breaking down. The last time it happened, I was in the middle of the nowhere. I
had to wait for 2 hours until the break down service arrived!
Apart from that, nothing much has changed. I'm still living in the same house in
Sheffield and still going trekking in the mountains every other weekend.
A funny thing happened to me and Julia when we were in trekking in Wales
about 2 months ago. We were walking up Snowden when it suddenly started to
snow. I thought that it wouldn't last for long, so we continued going up. But it did
and it got a lot worse. So we decided to turn back and return to the car.
Unfortunately, when we eventually got back to the car, we couldn't move it
because of the snow. After an hour of trying to dig it out, it still wouldn't move. At
that point, we had to decide whether we'd stay in the car the night or walk back to
the nearest village, which was 10 miles away. We decided to walk to the village.
It took us over three hours to walk to the village. As you can imagine, Julia wasn't
happy. She blamed me for everything and refused to talk to me for most of the
journey. An interesting weekend to say the least.
In summer (so fortunately no snow!) we're planning to go to the Pyrenees in Spain
for a week. You've been there, haven't you? Have you got any suggestions of
places which we should visit when we are over there?
Are you still going to watch Leeds United? They are not having a good season this
year. But that's nothing new!
Have you heard anything from Jeff? I was thinking the other day about when we
all went to London for the weekend. Do you remember how drunk he was on the
Saturday? You had to take him back to the hotel in a taxi and put him to bed.
Always trouble, but such a nice guy.
We really should meet up some time. Go out for a few drinks at the pub? Let me
know if you fancy it.
Anyway, I have to get back to doing some work.
Hope to hear from you soon.
Take care,
Bill
P.S. Julia gives her love.