Secretary Report - April 2026

Greetings Area 41,

I am Zach, an alcoholic and your Secretary. The last few months have been busy, exciting and humbling. I have learned a lot and have had plenty of opportunities for growth! I have a feeling there are more to come.

January and February brought my first time through the newsletter process. I am confident Jaiden and I have developed a system that will work well moving forward. I appreciate the timeliness of the reports being sent in. I had many in my inbox to start the day. Thank you all! Thank you to Nick for your formatting assistance, and thank you to Jaiden for doing such a great job, and such excellent communication.

In February I attended West Central in Cedar Rapids Iowa. I have previously attended a couple of these conferences via Zoom. It was quite an experience to be there in person. It was nice to meet other members of the West Central region I had previously seen on camera, and to learn more about our principles, processes and help prepare our Delegate for the General Service Conference. I had the privilege to be one of the speakers in the first general sharing sessions. It was an exciting and nerve wracking experience. Thank you, Russ, for the opportunity. It was a privilege to represent and serve Area 41!

I attended and helped put on the Breakfast meeting in Grant. It was well attended with plenty of fellowship and recovery. Thank you to all who attended and Nick for speaking.

I also helped set up our translation and interpretation. I am excited to report that Area 41’s business meetings are now bilingual in audio as well as written. As has been previously communicated, we decided to go with Wordly. Area 41 has contracted for two years. We have a total of 28 hours to use. The total cost was $2270.50. This figure includes the one time $500.00 onboarding fee and a $25.00 online convenience fee. Area 41 was able to secure a 10% discount as a nonprofit and the reduced hourly rate of $71.25 due to purchasing a larger number of hours up front. We have the ability to purchase more hours if we need to. I was also able to confirm that the 50 user limit is a soft number. There should be no issues if more people than that log on. I would like to point out that the two year cost is under what was budgeted for just one year. The agenda item requires reporting back next April on the effectiveness and a recommendation of how to proceed. I would welcome and appreciate any feedback you have (call, text, talk, email. Whatever works for you!). If you have any technical difficulties, please reach out to Cory, our Audio/Video servant. Thank you to the previous rotation’s Report and Charter committee for all of their hard work on this, and to Nick, Char, Ann and Cory. I look forward to seeing this move forward, and I am grateful to witness our principles in action and see all of our members have the ability to participate fully in our business meetings.

I have had a few opportunities now to chair Report and Charter committee meetings. I am learning that being in a committee and chairing one is slightly different. The committee has been patient and extremely helpful. We are working well together and are off tooff to a great start. I am excited to get to know the members of the committee better, and to see what we will accomplish .this rotation in service to you, Area 41.

Yesterday, I helped facilitate the breakout discussion for Report and Charter. It was an interesting discussion. I am always humbled to see our process in action, and I truly feel grateful being able to serve and participate. Thank you, Russ, for all the information in preparation for the breakout session and encouragement.

As a reminder, I am using the email: secretary@area41.org Please forward any changes to your contact information to me. If you want to receive the Highlights or the newsletter digitally, please let me know. Committee, officer and DCM reports will need to be submitted to me for inclusion in the newsletter no later than a week from today. Please reach out if you have any questions or concerns or if I can be of assistance. Thank you for the opportunity to serve Area 41. I am grateful for the opportunity to serve

Yours in service, Zach I., Area 41 Secretary