Happy New Years Belles! We hope you had a safe and joyous holiday! Going forward, we will be submitting monthly emails instead of bi-monthly. It’ll be a recap email of the previous month and contain the same type of content that we’ve seen before including announcements, pinball news, and pinball tips. Particularly important news will be put at the top of the email.
⚠️ Be aware that we have a new Code of Conduct page on our website. Please be sure to give a read as when you play a tournament with us, you are agreeing to abide by this conduct. ⚠️
Notable Sections in Email:
IFPA + PRPA Update, Event Recaps, Space Invaders Tips, Fundraiser Update, Round of Applause
⚠️ Looking Ahead: PRPA + IFPA Relationships, New Code of Conduct ⚠️
You may have already seen on social media that we are now part of the brand new Punk Rock Pinball Association! Their goal is simple: get more people playing competitive pinball. Super fun fact! One of the co-founders is a woman, Stephanie Wysocki! She is incredibly sweet and even sent us some free swag which you’ll see on our prize table next time we have a PRPA event. She also co-hosts the PRP podcast, so be sure to check out their website and content for more info.
Like the IFPA, PRPA uses a national points system but this one is intentionally friendly to beginner and mid-level players. The scoring system is refreshingly simple: the only important variable is the number of players. Format, event length, finals… None of that matters. This means tournaments can have some truly whacky (but approved) rules and still count which opens the door to some very fun formats in the near future. 🎉 There is also some hope to have some regional and maybe women’s leaderboards.
Events can also be both PRPA and IFPA approved at the same time. Both organizations ask for a $1 per-player fee. We won’t be passing along any additional costs to players. Instead, that occasional extra dollar will come out of the usual $5 entry fee. You may opt out of either of these fees; however, we you will not be submitted to the tournament results and we will use the waived fee for future prizes. As always, if you’d ever like to donate to the Belles & Chimes fund, you’re welcome to do so. We don’t pocket entry fees; they go directly toward tournament fees, trophies, swag, and marketing.
But what about our relationship with the IFPA?
For now, we’ve decided to continue hosting some IFPA tournaments through at least the first half of the year, specifically our Wednesday events. We’ll continue to reevaluate as the IFPA rolls out updates.
There have been some positive improvements particularly around Diversity & Inclusion language. The IFPA has more clearly outlined expectations for inclusive and safe events, including requirements like having restrooms that align with a person’s gender (something that should’ve already been standard, but we’re glad to see it formally written).
That said, we’re still unsure about IFPA staffing plans after the collective resignation of the Women’s Advisory Board. While IFPA has stated they won’t be creating a new WAB, they’ve expressed a desire for a more diverse collective voice. It’s important to us that this results in meaningful, visible change especially when it comes to accountability for tournament directors, organizers, and venues following inclusion rules. If you’re looking at other ways to distance yourself from IFPA while still attending our events, please see our Code of Conduct which goes over opting out and account suppression.
Wednesday Match Play
Huge thank you to the 14 folks who came out to flip and give back with us at The Kickback Bar! We were especially excited to welcome 4 new players, including Cora’s mom who was visiting and one player who joined us all the way from Boston!
We played 5 rounds of MatchPlay followed by a top 4 running from the bear finals. Tiffany was on fire all night, going undefeated through MatchPlay qualifying and carrying that momentum straight through finals.
🏆 Winners’ Circle 🏆
🥇 Tiffany
🥈Mary
🥉 Tamara
🏅 Jacque
They took some local chocolate home!
Bonus wins went to Donelle on Walking Dead Remastered, Jesse on Jaws, and Rhonda on the original Walking Dead. They won some homemade snowmen and others won magnets.
Sunday Pin-Golf
Before we said goodbye to 2025, we had our last tournament at The Kickback Bar. It was a special one as it was our first Punk Rock Pinball Association–approved event! 🎉 (More on that further down in the email)
Ten of us played 9 holes of pin-golf. No brand-new faces, but we did have a couple of returning newbies which we love to see!
Dori led off the finals, choosing a bank of Space Station, Iron Maiden, and Ghostbusters, and it all came down to the final game.
🏆 Winners’ Circle 🏆
🥇 Dori
🥈Tiffany
🥉 Jacque
🏅 Mackenzie
Top 4 walked away with a printed star decoration. Other winners of the alt-finals include Hallie who got a Stern Pinball t-shirt and Amber who got flipper earrings. Everyone got a free round of drinks and some puppy lovin’! 🐶✨
Mackenzie also won the random draw for the Star-Lord Pop figure, and Tamara snagged the Aerosmith translite.
This was also our final event with proceeds benefiting Fair Wisconsin. We’re happy to share that we donated $230 to support their work building a fair, safe, and inclusive society for LGBTQ+ people in Wisconsin.
Upcoming Events
Our next event is at Ryan’s Retro Arcade on January 14th for a casual meet and greet. No formal tournament but if there are at least 4 players, we might do a light best game competition on one machine for a small prize.
Please reach out if you are interested in carpooling to the location!
The following event will be at The Kickback on January 25th for 9 holes of pin-golf and our Walking Dead Launch Party! Registration begins at 11:30AM, and we start playing at 12:00PM. Entry fee is also $5 + coin drop. $1 of the fee will go to IFPA and the other to PRPA.
We encourage you to RSVP on Facebook. It helps the engagement on our page and can drive additional viewers to the event.
⭐ Pin Tip: Rip the Spinner! ⭐
Unfortunately, in the Madison area, we do not have a lot of opportunities to play classic games. Fortunately, Ryan’s Retro Arcade has some and you’ll run into a lot if you ever visit District 82. Classic machines often have a pretty simple strategy to go for if you’re unsure of its ruleset — rip the spinner and advance your bonuses.
For Space Invaders specifically, hitting your skillshot (the middle top lane) will light your spinners. Spinners will usually show the base value and the value when lit right on the playfield. If you want to advance your bonus, the horseshoe shot in the middle is right there for some juicy points but be careful! If you miss, you might be going to draintown.
Interested in learning more quick tricks on classic games? Erik at District 82 in De Pere has quick 90 second tutorials on how to play many of his games. You can find his tutorial on Space Invaders here. Check his playlists for a compilation of his quick tutorials. We imagine there are some ladies that will want to brush up on their classics games very soon. 😉
📰 Fundraiser Update 📰
Thanks again to everyone who contributed to both charity efforts either by donating money, goods, or just participating in a Belles tournament.
Thanks to more than 20 contributors, we gave away lots of prizes and raised $240 for WayForward Resources and 2 bags of non-perishable donations. Prize winners were drawn from both our Belles pool and the general public.
We know some of you have been asking about the how many jellybeans were in the jar… Drumroll… 🥁🥁🥁
There were 278 jelly beans in the jar!
Closest guess: Stacie with 276 🎉
Jillian and James were right behind with guesses of 275. We’ll be reaching out to Stacie about the two Forever Tickets to Midwest Gaming Classics, generously donated by Brooke.
Additional thanks to those who donated to the prize pool including Stern Pinball, Aftershock Classic Arcade Bar, and individuals who donated from their personal stash of pinball goodies!
👏 Round of Applause 👏
Round of applause to our Belles who were invited to Wisconsin Women’s State Championships! You can see the final list here. If you want to see the folks who declined, you can switch the view to Open and Women’s to see the respective rankings per division. We want to call out Dori, Donelle, Tiffany, Mary, Cora, Jacque, Lauren, Alessandra, Ashley, and Sara. These are all individuals who were invited to attend the champions whether directly or as an alternate who have attend a B&C Madison event as least once in 2025.
Unfortunately Donelle and Lauren are not able to make it, allowing for another 2 individuals a shot at state. However there are a few newbies who are participating for the first time including Tiffany, Cora, and Ashley! Please wish them luck!
Although we don’t collaborate with Madison Pinball, we do want to recognize that we had two kickass Belles invited to the Madison Pinball Championship. This championship isn’t limited to Madison Pinball–run events; instead, it ranks players based on IFPA points earned in the Madison area (Kickback, Aftershock, and Madison Pinball locations). Unlike official IFPA rankings, there’s no cap on how many events count toward these standings.
Mary was the only woman to qualify in the top 16, with Tiffany listed as the second alternate. Due to two dropouts, including Mary, Tiffany was able to step in and compete. This was Tiffany’s first time playing in the championship, and she finished 12th place!
Congratulations, Tiffany! Well fought! We can’t wait to see even more Belles invited in the future. 💜
Let’s have a kickass start to 2026!
– Belles & Chimes Planning Team