Drupal 7 - Moving the messages text from a zone to a region in an Omega subtheme

The messages always mess up my page layout, so I usually simply want them on the top of my page content.

1. remove message from its default postion
1.a  Copy  zone--content.tpl.php to your subtheme's template directory (if you have not done that already)
1.b Remove these lines
  <?php  if ($messages): ?>
      <div id="messages" class="grid-<?php print $columns; ?>"><?php print $messages; ?></div>
    <?php endif; ?>

2. transfer the messages variable to the region template
2.a Open template.php
2.b add a preprocess functio, or modify if you alreay have one

 function THEMENAME_preprocess_region(&$vars) {
      $theme = alpha_get_theme();
     if ($vars['elements']['#region'] == 'content') {
       $vars['messages'] = $theme->page['messages'];
    }
 }


3. add the messages to the region template
Just write anywhere you want in the template
    <?php if ($messages): ?>
      <div id="messages" class="grid-<?php print $columns; ?>"><?php print $messages; ?></div>
    <?php endif; ?>