The two primary responsibilities of the Secretary-General are to act as Secretary to the Executive Committee and to be an ex-officio member of all standing committees. I attend all meetings of the committees in order to facilitate communication and help avoid confusion that might be created by the work of different committees on similar projects.

The rest of my report is reflective of my employed position as Resident Director since it deals with office work which is not specified as part of the Secretary-General's duties.

Staffing. In addition to myself, our full-time staff includes: Vin Myers, Book Dept. & Production, Claire Miller, Book Dept. & Conference Dept., and Marina Panos, Secretary & Conference Dept. Part-time services are provided by Gloriann Harris, Office Operations, Marcia Lansu & Judy McMullin, Accounting & Bookkeeping Services. Until the June meeting of the Executive Committee, Marian Rowley was still our full-time volunteer who provided multiple office support services. The Executive Committee, with expression of grateful thanks for her many years of loyal service, officially "retired" Marian. She still will come to the office on her own schedule to complete various projects she had to put aside over the years.

In trying to convey to you the sense of growth in our work, I can only liken it to a small family-operated business where three people talking each morning can coordinate their daily activities to accomplish shared goals. We now have evolved to a departmental system which demands greater team work by a larger number of individuals who no longer can know or do the work of all departments. I feel that this is an exciting time of staff development. This should lead to more effective provision of staff services to our reader community.

Book Distribution. As a consequence of the General Council's desire for greater activity in the area of book distribution, I have allocated more time to contact wholesale distributors and the retail book trade. Current distributors include: The Baker & Taylor Co., Book people, Inc. of Berkeley, California, DeVorss & Co., Gordon's of Denver, Ingram Book Co., New Leaf of Atlanta, and Starlight of Utah. We continue to do business with the U.S.'s largest chain store, Waldenbooks. In addition, sales have increased to B. Dalton Books. Trade advertising has been placed in the catalogs of Book people and New Leaf.

For the first time, we attended the American Booksellers Association convention in Washington, D.C., May 23-26. A booth was designed and purchased for such convention display as well as other Brotherhood uses. This experience provided the opportunity to meet many of our customers as well as personally talk with all our distributors and make new contacts. It also gave the opportunity to contact distributors from other countries. These leads are being followed up at this time and I hope to be able to report progress in this area to you in the near future.

Respectfully submitted,

John Hales, Secretary General