Six Ilkley women will be joining the 5,000 people specially selected to carry the Queen's Jubilee Baton next weekend.

The women are members of Ilkley Soroptimists International and have been chosen to carry the Jubilee Baton when it passes through the district.

The Jubilee Baton Relay will be travelling through 500 towns and cities, including Shipley and Skipton. The baton left Buckingham Palace on Commonwealth Day, March 11, and has journeyed through 22 countries before returning to Britain on June 6.

It will signal the opening of the Commonwealth Games 2002 when it arrives in Manchester on July 25 and is presented back to the Queen.

Pat Smith and Daphne Steele will be the first members of the group to hold the baton when it reaches Shipley at 9am next Friday. They will be followed by Elizabeth Hughes and Nellie Thornton, who will be representing the group when it reaches Skipton at 10.15am.

Kathleen Wilson will be carrying the baton in Scarborough on July 6 and Margaret Cook will be taking part in the Northallerton leg on July 11.

The women from Ilkley were selected for some of the remarkable things they have done in the community.

Pat Smith has held a Church Fellowship focusing on choir work with young people. Her love of music has benefited many schools, churches and groups, such as Bingley Little Theatre. She has carried out work at Manorlands Hospice and supported the families of children with special needs.

Pat will be carrying the baton 200 metres along the A650, Bingley Road from Sherwood Grove to Airedale Mason's Signs.

The first black matron of a UK hospital, namely St Winifred's Maternity Hospital in Ilkley, Daphne Steele, will be carrying the baton along the A650 Bradford Road from Kirkgate to the Co-op Late shop on Bingley Road.

Daphne is involved with many local organisations, including Ilkley Talking Newspaper, Ilkley Council for Voluntary Service, Association for Spina Bifida and Htdrocephalus and Ilkley Festivities Committee.

The co-founder of the Ilkley Talking Newspaper, Elizabeth Hughes, has been selected to run the Skipton leg of the relay.

Elizabeth runs the newspaper, which is a vital community service staffed by

volunteers, and is involved with Ilkley Council for Voluntary Service and is the Soroptimists Adviser for International Goodwill and Understanding, as which she has campaigned for Aids education and the plight of refugees.

Nellie Thornton will be running in the Skipton part of the relay. She was singled out for her lifetime of voluntary service to the disabled, housebound and those in care.

A former regional secretary for Abbeyfield in Yorkshire, Kathleen Wilson, has been chosen to run in the Scarborough leg of the race.

Kathleen has continued her active involvement with the Abbeyfield Millennium Project and the Methodist Church, of which she has been a stalwart fundraiser for local youth and community projects.

Margaret Cook will be running in Northallerton, she was a founder member of the Ilkley Family Planning Group, a

supporter of scouts and the Beamsley Project and is chairman of the UK Programme Action Committee of the Soroptimists.

The baton itself contains a

message from the Queen for the opening of the games, it will travel to 500

towns in 50 days and be carried by 5,000 runners.