J.D. Potié
CAMPBELL’S BAY
April 24, 2019
On April 24, TransporAction Pontiac held its annual general meeting at the organization’s headquarters on Hwy. 148 in Campbell’s Bay.
With around a dozen Pontiac residents seated in the small conference room, TransporAction Director General Sylvie Bertrand opened the meeting with a word of welcome.
After adopting the meeting’s agenda, Bertrand led proceedings with nominations for the president and secretary of assembly, which went to Bertrand and Lise Lagarde respectively.
Due to accountant Joffrey Sevigny’s absence, Jean-Phillippe Simard was invited to present the organization’s financial statements from the previous year.
The statements showed a $46,578 deficit from the balance at the start of the year, which can be attributed to an augmentation in services provided by the organization, according to TransporAction Pontiac President Guylaine Marcil.
Having started out the year with a healthy balance of over $770,000, Marcil said the organization was financially secure enough to spend the extra money to provide additional activities – something she says they do every year.
“That was on purpose,” said Marcil. “Like we said, we have a healthy balance. We still want to keep a little cushion, but not such a high balance. So, every year we augment our activities. Sometimes it’s a group of people who want to do an activity in Gatineau or go to the hair salon. We now provide that for them. So, for sure it augments the deficit.”
After adopting the previous year’s financial statements, Bertrand read the organization’s activities report, which showed a slight down tick in the number of trips provided, compared to the year before. With around 300 less total trips than in 2017, Bertrand noted that it was likely linked to the region’s constantly aging population.
“We have an aging population,” said Bertrand. “So, we’ve had a lot of deaths among our customer base.”
While reading the activities report, Bertrand revealed that TransporAction Pontiac had officially purchased the building located on Route 148 in Cambell’s Bay, which they had been renting for the last 15 years.
Despite being happy as renters for over a decade, Marcil said the council felt compelled to purchase the building once it was up for sale, because she couldn’t stand the thought of TransporAction Pontiac leaving it to someone else.
“We were comfortable as renters,” she said. “That was not a problem, as we had been for 15 years. But, when the [former] owner decided to sell, we felt bad about leaving it behind because we were well situated here.”
Now, as owners of the property, Marcil is optimistic that the money saved from no longer having to pay for rent will give them additional financial leeway to provide even more services to its customer-base.
“We decided to purchase it because we knew it was a good deal,” said Marcil. “Many of the rooms here, we don’t use. So, that’s something we can renovate and rent out to various organizations, thus having another revenue stream for us to make repairs to our vehicles among other things.”
According to Marcil, the organization is also envisioning opening a garage where they can store all their vehicles.
“It’s something we’re looking into,” she said.
Marcil was not surprised with an underwhelming turnout at the meeting. She attributed it to awful timing, considering that many of them were held up by the flood, filling sandbags, while some among the administrative council recently lost family members.
“We usually have a lot more presence from mayors,” said Marcil. “Some of them were here but they had to leave [due to the floods]. Even with the council there have been losses of family, which all happened this week.”
“Normally, the room is filled with volunteers who attend as well,” she continued. “But, right now they’re all busy. But the people know that no matter what the ball keeps rolling. They have confidence in our organization. We’ve been rolling for 15 years.”
