CLERGY numbers in the dioceses of Ripon and Leeds will be boosted next weekend with the ordination of eight curates.

Six men and two women from backgrounds including nursing, business management and the Crown Prosecution Service will be made curates at 10.30am on Sunday, at Ripon Cathedral.

They will be ordained by the Bishop of Knaresborough, the Right Reverend Frank Weston, who will also preach at Sunday's service.

They include Margaret Rimmer, a former senior staff nurse from Preston, who will become a curate at Aysgarth with Bolton-cum-Redmire, and David Stevens from Huddersfield, who will begin his ministry at St Margaret's Church, Horsforth. Martine Crabtree, from Nottingham, will be ordained to serve at Kippax with Allerton Bywater. Peter Askew, a former business manager from Saltburn will serve as a curate at St John's Church, Bilton, Harrogate, while Adam Clayton, a student, is to be the curate at St Chad's, Headingley.

Three ordinands from within the Diocese of Ripon and Leeds are being ordained as non-stipendiary curates, two of them remaining "ministers in secular employment".

Tim Hurran, a Harrogate management consultant, will serve his curacy at St Peter's, Harrogate, while James Turner, who is a civil servant working for the Crown Prosecution Service in Leeds is to be curate at his home church of St Cross Middleton.

Clyde Rawlins, now retired, will serve at St Aidan's Harehills.

Bishop Weston will conduct a preparation retreat for those being ordained, at Holy Rood House, in Thirsk.