History
The origins of the Pontiac Chamber of Commerce are diverse, which no doubt has aided immensely in its broad based success to date. This diversity has contributed to our Chamber in becoming a vibrant organization that has its roots primarily with the now dissolved Shawville and District Chamber of Commerce. During it’s day this small urban based chamber worked diligently in both promoting and protecting the commercial interests in the village where it was based. However, with the progress of time, varying factors such as a declining population and external market pressures sapped much of the energy out of this organization. It became apparent that for businesses within the entire Pontiac to be truly supporting of each other and to have an effective voice, a county wide consolidation of commercial interests was required.
The initiative to create a voice for business in the Pontiac was lead by the board of the Shawville Chamber of Commerce, which in the fall of 2006 began the drive to create an all encompassing Pontiac wide chamber in order to eliminate competitative self interests and to foster a spirit of solidarity in confronting the status quo. Within time a steering committee of county wide business persons was formed to promote the Shawville initiative. It quickly became apparent that broad based support for the steering committee’s promotion of a large and united chamber could be realized, as a very positive response was returned in a county wide exploratory questionnaire accomplished with the assistance of SADC.
Encouraged by this response, the steering committee committed to obtain the dissolution of any other ‘active’ chamber charters within the proposed defined territory of our area of consideration. We found four; namely Shawville and District, as mentioned, as well as Fort Coulonge and Campbell’s Bay. The two latter whom had not met for many years. Within MRC Pontiac there was one municipality, namely Caywood Allyn which was already claimed by another Chamber, external to the Pontiac. They then had to be excluded from our chamber’s territory, which was now officially named the Pontiac Chamber of Commerce.
Upon acquiring the dissolution of these three chambers, the steering committee was actively engaged in being granted a certificate of formation from Industry Canada, which was issued in February 2008. On May 8th of that same year the newly formed Pontiac Chamber of Commerce held its first Annual General Meeting that witnessed twenty board members being elected from the floor. In less than a two year span of time, a reawakening within the Pontiac business community has been achieved and is being built upon common interests and goals.
To this end the Executive and Board continue to build a strong membership network and create an internal strategic plan to ensure future longevity and growth.