MBEs were awarded to Mary Elizabeth Bromley, Sandra Irwin Davies, Mary Beatrice Guest and Margaret Mcalister Owen.

Mrs Bromley, 77, of Oswestry, has raised more than £58,000 for good causes.

Known locally as Betty, she said she was “thrilled and delighted”.

Mrs Bromley, of Edward Street, Oswestry, said she started her fundraising efforts by placing a collection tin in the Oswestry cafe she ran in Willow Street with her husband Ken.

Having started collecting for charity in 1976, she has raised £58,352 over the years and since 198 has arranged large scale charity events from the cafe business.

Between 1984 and 2006 she raised more than £47,765 for Macmillan Cancer Research. The main events she has organised to raise this money are musical concerts at the Marches School in Oswestry.

These have become very popular and have followers from across the country attending from places such as Ludlow, Herefordshire, Church Stretton and even Manchester.

Mrs Bromley said: “It is a great honour and I am delighted.

“It is not for me really, it is for all the people who come miles to the events I put on such as the organ concerts and the dances.

“If they did not come and make such an effort then I would not organise them. I also must thank Ken for all his support and for members of staff who we worked with at the cafe and who still help us.

“We retired in 1999 but we have kept in touch with a lot of people and they come from miles to support our events.

“People support our events so well. Recently we had 58 raffle prizes at one event which was incredible.

“Between 2007 and 2009 we have raised £7,428 for the Midlands Air Ambulance,” added Mrs Bromley, whose achievements were recently recognised in the Shropshire Star’s unsung heroes feature.

Mrs Owen’s MBE was awarded in recognition of her services to the community in Shrewsbury where she lives.

She has worked for various charities around the county and founded the Shropshire branch of the National Council for the Conservation of Plants and Gardens.

She grows more than 200 varieties of snowdrops at her former home at Acton Pigott, near Acton Burnell, where her son now lives. She regularly opens the garden to the public to raise money for the MS Society.

She said she liked to support the charity because her late sister suffered from the condition. Last year she raised £4,500 for the charity.

She was also involved with the League of Friends at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital for 40 years and organised the flower rota at the hospital for 35 years.

Mrs Owen said: “I was surprised when I found out.

“I’m looking forward to going to the palace and will probably take one or two of my children with me.”

Mrs Davies has received her honour for her services to her home town of Craven Arms. She is a church warden at Newcastle Parish Church, a governor of Newcastle Primary School as well as being a parish councillor.

Edmund Jones, chairman of Newcastle Parish, said: “She’s an excellent councillor, she represents her parishioners very well. She’s always busy, she’s a lovely lady who is always doing something for other people. In my opinion, and in everyone else’s I’m sure, it’s well-deserved.”

Meanwhile Mrs Guest, who lives in Church Stretton, has received her honour for services to people with sensory impairment.

She said: “I’m very surprised to receive the MBE. I got this letter which said On Her Majesty’s Business and I was worried I had forgotten to pay some tax, when I read it was just amazed.”

Mrs Guest, who retired to Shropshire a year ago, was a teacher for deaf people and worked for the charity Sense, which helps deaf and blind people, for more than 20 years.

She helped to raise awareness of a condition called Usher syndrome.

Sufferers are usually born with hearing loss or deafness and go on to develop sight problems in late childhood.

This can lead to total loss of sight or severe visual impairment.

Mrs Guest also helped to found the British Retinitis Pigementosa Society in the 1970s.

She has worked to promote a better understanding of Usher syndrome and to support families of people diagnosed with it, making sure they had accurate and up-to-date information.

By Simon Hardy