blog post courtesy of Greg Dunlap

Offers a New, Free Children’s Facility in Portland, Oregon

Beginning April 2, 2015, Pinball Outreach Project (POP) will offer free pinball to children 13 and under at the local nonprofit's new brick-and-mortar headquarters. Located at 4605 NE Fremont St., Ste. 104, in Portland, Oregon, the new facility will house up to nine pinball machines including a brand new Tron: Legacy from Stern Pinball. Additionally, the headquarters will include a semi-private party area, and space to offer local children’s programming including pinball summer camps, leagues, and tournaments.

“Portland boasts more location pinball than any other city in the United States, however, finding family friendly, kid-focused locations can be difficult,” POP Founder and Executive Director Nicole Reik said. “Creating a fun, permenant, child-focused space is a clear next step in POP’s overall mission.”

POP provides pinball machines to children’s hospitals around the West Coast, bringing the family arcade experience directly to patients and their loved ones. The new POP Headquarters will make it easier for the public to support these efforts. In addition to free-play for children during specified hours, the public can play pinball games at the new headquarters using tokens acquired through donations to the organization.

A grand opening celebration will be held at POP Headquarters April 18, 2015 from 6-9 pm and the public is invited to stop by, learn about the organization, and experience some pinball magic for themselves.

About Pinball Outreach Project (POP)

POP is a 501(c)(3) charity aiming to improve the lives of children by providing pinball games directly to chidlren’s hospitals, schools, and at POP Headquarters free of charge. To learn more about POP or its fundraisers and tournaments visit our website at pinballoutreach.org or call (415) 857-1POP.

The Coast 2 Coast Pinball Podcast continues with their 24/7 competitive pinball coverage. Up next, Nate caught up with [player]Adam Kiesler[/player] and 2014-15 Oregon State Pinball Champion [player]Noah Davis[/player].

Click below to listen:

Episode 143 "From Montreal To Portland or Adam Kiesler and Noah Davis

blog post courtesy of Daniel Spolar

Following the success of last year IFPA/ Project Pinball Charity Campaign fundraiser which raised over $23,000, the IFPA is proud to announce that we are teaming up with Project Pinball to help raise funds for their charity again this year. This IFPA/ Project Pinball Charity Campaign 2015 will not be limited to one month but run the entire year.

The IFPA plans on treating each of these Project Pinball tournaments as a unique event with the point allotment change this year. Each of these tournaments could be worth full value WPPR points decided by the tournament input information as what would be similar to the tournaments you are entering to our site now. Go to the “submit to the IFPA Calendar” link here: http://www.ifpapinball.com/calendar/submit.php, if you're interested in setting up an event and we'll work with you on getting it added to the IFPA calendar. We hope to set up events nationwide and use competitive pinball as a way to help raise funds for this great charity. The tournament must be scheduled 30 days before the tournament is to be held to qualify.

Below is the announcement from Daniel Spolar of the Project Pinball Charity:

After the success of the IFPA/ Project Pinball Charity July Campaign 2014 and the huge support that we received from the pinball community, we are returning with a bigger and better offering for our tournament players. The IFPA and Project Pinball Charity is introducing its new campaign that is not limited to just a single month but will run the entire year. The IFPA/ Project Pinball Charity Campaign 2015 will be a year long tournament fundraiser event. Plus, we are now offering a chance to win a brand new pinball machine of the winner’s choice for its grand prize as well as other super prizes to be won.

We are looking for people, organizers, tournament directors and players willing to get involve make this Charity Campaign come alive and so we can give to the Children’s Hospitals a special gift from all of us!

Organizers and Tournament Directors get your tournaments and dates ready to be included in this charity offering for your tournament players. We will be offering this Pinball Machine Sweepstakes and many other prizes and awards to be used for your tournaments. We will have the full details and requirements at http://www.projectpinball.org/organize-an-event. You will be able register your tournament on that page so we can add your tournament to our list and offer you our full support to you and your players.

We have been working with the IFPA and have greatly appreciated their help, guidance and insight with the new WPPR point changes and their assistance to bring this to the pinball community. The IFPA will allow WPPR points to given to those participating in this charity drive to help entice players to attend. The IFPA points will be determined by Tournament Director’s information submitted as they would for a regular tournament. No extra WPPR point value will be offered just because this is a charity tournament as it was in the past, but hey, you can win a pinball machine and still help people!

Quick Details:

Each pinball tournament that is held as an IFPA/ Project Pinball Charity Campaign Tournament (and meets the requirements) will be eligible to receive entries to the Pinball Machine Sweepstakes for a chance to win the grand prize- a pinball machine and many other awesome prizes. The only way to enter this exclusive Pinball Machine Sweepstakes will be limited to these tournament offerings, no person can buy into this offering directly.

There will be 4 Pinball Machine Sweepstakes entries allotted to each charity tournament.  3 entries will be earned by players for their high final rankings and 1 entry given randomly by drawing a player’s name that did not earn an entry by final ranking. So every player has a chance to win even if you finish in last place.

This fundraiser campaign will be kicking off on March 12, 2015 at PAPA Headquarters during PAPA 18 and continue running until January 31, 2016 with the help from our friends at the International Flipper Pinball Association.

The Long Version:

A lot more of the details, clarifications, requirements, limitations and rules will be posted Thursday 5, 2015 at 10:00 pm est at http://www.projectpinball.org/organize-an-event

Let’s make this IFPA/ Project Pinball Charity Campaign 2015 a huge success so we can continue to give the patients, kids, parents, doctors and nurses that could use our special help by providing a pinball machine for their enjoyment.

We are a registered 501(c)3 Nonprofit Organization 46-3417202. For more information on Project Pinball Charity go to our home page http://ProjectPinball.org or we can be contacted at [email protected]

Pavlov Pinball posted an article regarding competitive pinball on their site. They talked with many of the top players to help share some tips on how to become a better player. Click HERE to read the article.

PAPA and IFPA have worked together to create a unified set of rules that we recommend tournament directors use when dealing with malfunctions and other logistics regarding running a tournament (player errors, stuck balls, etc).

While certain formats will need additional rule verbiage to handle specific situations, these rules below should create a nice foundation for which to start with when creating rules for your own tournament.

Updated rules will always be available on both the PAPA and IFPA websites. Click HERE to view those rules. Any questions please don't hesitate to contact us for help in reviewing rules for your event.

The Coast 2 Coast Pinball Podcast has been competitive pinball crazy recently. Nate Shivers caught up with the PAPA team leading up to the PAPA 18 World Pinball Championships, as well as Current PAPA and former IFPA World Pinball Champion [player]Cayle George[/player].

Click the links below to listen:

• Episode 138 "An Evening With Mark, Doug and Jon from PAPA"
• Episode 140 "An Evening With Cayle George"

The Star Tribune published an article covering the IFPA Minnesota State Championship and the resurgence of the competitive pinball scene in the Minneapolis area. Click HERE to read the article.

While nearly 600 players were battling throughout the US and Canada on February 7th, Switzerland was playing host to the inaugural IFPA European Championship Series Final. The top 32 players in the ECS standings faced off to crown the IFPA's first European Pinball Champion. [player]Daniele Celestino Acciari[/player] from Italy defeated [player]Markus Stix[/player] from Austria to earn the title of IFPA European Pinball Champion. Full results for the 2014-15 IFPA European Pinball Championship are available HERE. Pinball News also has a write up with plenty of pictures on the ECS final available HERE.

We're now off the ground and running on the 2015-16 ECS season, with one event already in the books. The Nordwestschweizer-Flippermeisterschaft tournament was held this past weekend in Switzerland, with [player]Michael Trepp[/player] emerging victorious. Full results of that tournament are available HERE. The current ECS standings are available HERE.

The next ECS event takes players to Spain and the Netherlands with Torneo de Pinball Ciudad de Silla and the Dutch Pinball Masters both taking place April 18-19th weekend.The entire ECS schedule can be found HERE.

ABC affiliate WMUR-9 in New Hampshire covered the recent inaugural IFPA New Hampshire State Pinball Championship on their New Hampshire Chronicle show. Click HERE to watch the video.

We're excited to announce the initial game list for both the IFPA Pin-Masters and 2014-15 US National Pinball Championship.

Nationals will be played on Thursday March 26th, with the IFPA Pin-Masters starting the following day. A reminder that registration for the IFPA Pin-Masters closes March 1st.

Here is the tentative game list. Please note that this list is subject to change, and that at maximum, only 9 games will be used for the IFPA Pin-Masters. The most current available game list will be available HERE.

Bank-a-Ball (Gottlieb – 1965)
Cross Town (Gottlieb – 1966)
Old Chicago (Bally – 1976)
Evel Knievel (Bally – 1977)
Rock Star (Gottlieb – 1978)
Firepower (Williams – 1980)
Royal Flush Deluxe (Gottlieb – 1983)
Elvira and the Party Monsters (Bally – 1989)
Indianapolis 500 (Bally – 1995)
Medieval Madness (Williams – 1997)
Batman (Stern – 2010)
Tron LE (Stern – 2011)