PENARTH Civic Society has been saved from closure after local residents answered a desperate plea for volunteers to come forward.

The organisation was threatened with closing down if it couldn’t fill the key roles of chairman, treasurer and secretary before the Annual General Meeting (AGM) in April this year.

But after a plea in the Penarth Times in December last year the civic society has now found volunteers to fill these roles, as well as people coming forward to join the committee.

James Long is set to be chairman and Karen Grey is earmarked to be the next treasurer, while Angela Morris Parry, Phil Rees from The Olde Sweet Shop, Einir Kirkwood, Helen Roberts, Katherine Cole and senior librarian Marcus Payne have all volunteered to join the committee.

One of them will also be appointed to the role of secretary during the AGM.

Committee member Tracey Alexander said they were going through a transition period before the volunteers could be appointed to their new roles, but they were “absolutely thrilled” that enough volunteers had come forward and they would now be able to plan ahead for the future.

“It’s great that we have such a well equipped group with a wealth of experience to take the society forward for the future,” she said.

“We now have a really strong committee comprising of fundraising experience that will really help us plan future events.”

She added they were in the early stages of planning music festivals and a range of other fundraising events in the town, as well as continuing their role of preserving and enhancing all aspects of the town’s heritage. The civic society, which was founded in 1988 in a bid to preserve the Penarth Baths building on the Esplanade and is a registered charity, is also part of the Momentum Group hoping to shape the Penarth Town Place Plan,

The society has around 170 members, including honorary members Stephen Doughty MP, Cllr Anthony Ernest, local artist Diana Mead and Hazel Dickson MBE.

Tracey Alexander also paid tribute to the existing committee members, and thanked the Penarth Times for all its help in their appeal for volunteers.

“The current committee have put in an awful lot of hard work with the society,” she said.

“We have done lots of projects in the past, but the future is all about meeting the requirements of what people want. It’s about working from the past to the future.”